Sri Lanka will be refashioned, remoulded and relaunched as a country which stands for human rights, democratic values with an economy that promotes growth in the coming years, former British MP and MEP of the European Parliament and Presidential Envoy of Sri Lanka Niranjan Deva-Aditya said delivering a speech at the dinner hosted by the British Sri Lankan Association (BRISLA) recently during its Annual Award Ceremony.
“We now have a chance under our current President to refashion, remould and relaunch one of the oldest countries in the world, one of the most literate countries in the world, one of the countries that fed South India and Bay of Bengal for thousands of years and to create a country which stands for human rights, democratic values and an economy that promotes growth in the coming years,” he said.
Deva highlighted that during President Wickremesinghe’s tenure, he successfully implemented a series of impactful economic reforms that yielded positive outcomes.
“When Ranil Wickremesinghe became President a year ago, you won’t believe this, but inflation was 70%. Today, it is 8%. Interest rate was 36%. Today, it is 12%.
Then the tourists coming to Sri Lanka could be counted on your fingers. Today, we are nearly 1.0 million and increasing. The hotels which were empty then are filling up now.
There are no food queues, no petrol queues, there are no power cuts. The IMF first tranche and the second tranche are being given. Things started going right simply because he knows what to do,” he said.
“He has been Prime Minister six times. He was a Cabinet Minister at the age of 26. He is now 74. For all his life, he has known how to use the instruments of governance to get the country on its feet and that is what he is doing. He just came back from Beijing, having signed the 1.5 billion dollar investment into Colombo with the Chinese. A couple of months ago, he persuaded the Indians to give Sri Lanka 4 billion dollars,” Deva-Aditya added.
“President Wickremesinghe has worked very hard to bring all the communities of Sri Lanka, the Tamil, the Sinhalese and the Muslim communities together in a very positive way to create one nation because we are one nation. For 2,500 years, Sri Lanka has been one nation and we must never allow anyone to divide us again,” Deva-Aditya stated.
Deva explained that all positive outcome was after the country was declared bankrupt. “We are going to become a key country in agribusiness, in internet and software and coding and digitized economy, in ports and logistics, in transport, in financial and banking servicing the Indian subcontinent, and further afield,” he said.
He encouraged his British political counterparts to consider investing in Sri Lanka as the nation gradually recovers from the recent economic turmoil. “Sri Lanka needs investments. She does not need lectures. The British role should be to lead the investment promotion of Sri Lanka as an opportunity to service the vast 1.4 billion Indian market. There is a free trade agreement between the small island and the huge 1.4 billion Indian market, which is not being used. We need to use that. And the British companies need to come to Sri Lanka, particularly in the service sector, banks, insurance companies, financial services, and other things, to promote the vast emerging middle class of India from Sri Lanka because Sri Lanka can give better tax rates, even no tax in some places like the Port City. New business friendly programmes are in place that will assist British companies to access the Indian market and promote services to India. This is a huge opportunity,” he said.
Deva stated that the strategic location of Sri Lanka, nestled in the heart of vital sea routes, facilitates strong diplomatic ties with neighbouring and distant nations alike, making it a crucial player in regional and international affairs.
“Sri Lanka’s position in the Indian Ocean makes her punch far above her weight, not only because of the ports, not only because of the undersea cables that link the entire financial world together and link all the financial messages that go through, only six kilometres away from the seashore, not only because of the size of the seabed that Sri Lanka owns, which is 28 times the size of the country going all the way to Antarctica, not only because she’s a hub between Africa and China, not only because she is a hub between the East and the West.
