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Govt targets single digit inflation
Tuesday, 21 November 2006 - 5:16 AM SL Time
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The Government is targeting bringing down the inflation rate to 9 per cent while retaining economic growth at 7.5 per cent in 2007, Treasury Secretary Dr. P. B. Jayasundara said.
`Inflation should be eliminated. The Government has to bring inflation down. The budget is the vehicle driving the whole process. The reflections of the Government should be shared with the public,` he told a seminar on Budget Proposals 2007 organised by the Inland Revenue Department on Friday.
Dr. Jayasundara said the Government is committed to take development to the village. `We have around 300 Divisional Secretaries. Through their activities lagging industries can be developed,` he said.
`We have a diverse private sector. We are in a post-tsunami era. We have to rebuild what we lost not only in the affected coastal belt but also in the rest of the economy,` Jayasundara said.
He added that high oil prices affected the Sri Lankan economy. `High oil prices is another issue that we had to deal with. We are still going through the discomfort of it. The expenditure on security has increased because of the conflict. Our development partners are ready to start many projects if there is no violence,` Jayasundara said.
He pointed out that agricultural development cannot be reached without a new cost structure. `There is no point in spurring agricultural development without setting prices in the right direction.
The upcountry livestock sector is expanding. Our farmers can enter a commercial market,` he said.
`There are unused infrastructure facilities. We are looking at some existing factories which are not functioning. With a little expenditure, the rural economy can be restructured,` Jayasundara explained.
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DVLADV
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21 Nov 2006 01:26:23 GMT Report for Abuse
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| Canada has a max target of 3% I think, but it has managed to keep it below this for a very long time. |
kiwikanga
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21 Nov 2006 02:27:58 GMT Report for Abuse
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Sri Lanka is full of magicians, specially in the Central Bank and Parliament. Nivard Cabraal seems to be the master magician of them all having PBJ as his Golaya!! So it may be they are going to do some magic to bring down inflation, restore peace, and develop Sri Lanka to the extent that Singapore will once again want to make Singapore into a country like Sri Lanka :-)
Edited By - kiwikanga - 21 Nov 2006 02:31:31 GMT |
tamilcanuck
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21 Nov 2006 03:11:49 GMT Report for Abuse
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The Government is targeting bringing down the inflation rate to 9 per cent while retaining economic growth at 7.5 per cent in 2007, Treasury Secretary Dr. P. B. Jayasundara said.
very easy. put a story in the Daily Noise and Inflation is now in the single digits! |
Sandman
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21 Nov 2006 05:09:10 GMT Report for Abuse
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Sri Lankan economy is full of surprises. It has effectively weathered a two decade old debilitating war, and still continues to churn out what we do best; produce export quality talent.
The stock market has become amazingly immune to security concerns, or rather is stabilized on the value of assets in the market and their future growth potential.
The SLG may do well to focus on enhancing productivity in the govt sector, reducing the tax burden on the private sector, or as is done in the western nations, reward public sector for performance and tax all equitably.
SLG also needs to look for ways to link the Sri Lankan currency to the Indian ruppee, eliminate tariff barriers with growth economies in the region etc.
Ideally the war should stop. Realistically, it will continue for another ten years. Most probably it will fizzle out when the ideological generation passes into senility. |
ajan
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21 Nov 2006 14:02:16 GMT Report for Abuse
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Here is another target.
sinhalese are dumbs and continue to be dumbs.
It was military responsible for almost 99% of the crimes in srilanka.
Top Crimes commited by srilankan military are
Killing ( so far they killed 100,000 tamils and many sinhalese)
rape,Bodily Harm,amputation and so on( runs into tens of thousands)
Steeling,Mugging,robbing ( amount if put together it will come as tens of billions of dollars)
other petty crimes.
there are over 20,000 army deserters in srilanka they are busy in the south. they have stolen enough in the north and east , now there isnt much for them so they now started their acts in the south.
they are very active, before srilankan police book a case of robory the next one reported. here is a interesting article to read.
Crime is the new source of terror in Buddhist Sri Lanka
BY AMEEN IZZADEEN
21 November 2006
CHICAGO was one of the destinations in my itinerary when I visited the United States in 2004 on a State Department-sponsored International Visitors Programme. It was not the Sears Towers that flashed through my mind as I saw Chicago on the programme schedule.
It was Chicago?s history of crime that I feared most. How safe would it be to visit Chicago? I remembered reading an old travel article on Chicago long, long ago. The writer referred to a television or radio advertisement, which urged people not to resist when an armed robber confronted them. The message was that your life was more important than your belongings.
It was disappointment that greeted me when I arrived in Chicago, a city which was in the past famous for crime syndicate, gangsterism, Al Capone and Big Jim. I even walked back to my hotel with Rebecca, the lady officer in charge of us, along lonely alleys between towering buildings in the dead of the night after dinner at a restaurant few kilometres away. There were no hold-ups by gun-toting criminals. I saw Chicago as a city of peace and security.
But Chicago?s horrible past and all the bad things I have read about it or seen in films are now surfacing from the archive in my mind and make me wonder whether Colombo and its suburbs are becoming a Chicago.
Last week, a retired Army lieutenant who had done extensive research on crime and criminal behaviour, conducted a workshop for the staff of a multinational based in the suburbs of Colombo. His advice was: 'Cooperate with the robber. If he asks for your car, mobile phone, wallet or jewellery, just give it. Don?t try to be a hero. If you want to be a hero, be prepared to die.'
According to him, Sri Lanka has become like a robbers? supermarket. So when he visits your part of the supermarket, treat him like a customer. Some may disagree with him and say his advice promotes crime. But the expert says that if you lose your car, you can buy one later. But if you lose your life, that?s the end of it. The rising crime rate, apart from war, is the talking point in Sri Lanka these days. At the grocery near my house, early customers talk about robberies and burglaries that took place overnight in the neigbourhood. Recently, the house of a friend, a veteran journalist, was robbed. The police told him they were unable to cope with the complaints. 'Before we could finish writing down one complaint regarding a robbery, we get another one,' a senior police officer told him.
The rising crime rate is certainly an offshoot of the war in the country. Police officers, who often cite the lack of manpower and resources as an excuse for their inefficiency in cracking down on crime, say tackling terrorism is their main task now. With inflation reaching more than 17 per cent, little job creation and a large number of military desertions, crime flourishes. Often armed robberies also end up in the killing of victims. Last week, a teacher was bludgeoned to death and her seven-year-old daughter badly beaten by armed robbers in broad daylight in their house on the outskirts of Colombo.
The Colombo University?s sociologist professor S. T. Hettige says crimes are manifestations of a deeper malaise the country is facing.
'The whole country is giving way. There is a high wave of crime. Part of the hill country is facing landslides, while other parts of the country are under water. There has been a total failure of governance for several decades. The two main political parties have now come together, but the crucial governance issue has not been taken up. There is only doublespeak,' he told a weekend newspaper.
The professor is not alone. Even the ordinary people are asking what is happening to the county. People are hit by a never-ending war and attendant humanitarian crises in Jaffna, Vakarai and other places. Floods and landslides have killed more than 50 people in the past two weeks with more than 100,000 people displaced. Tens of thousands of people are suffering from chikungunya, which, like tsunami, was unheard of in Sri Lanka till it hit us. To cap it all, the law and order situation is also taking a nosedive with people fast losing faith in the system. The irony of the situation is that in some poor neighbourhoods of the city, people turn to underworld gang lords for justice, which is swift and the parties to a dispute will not dare to go against the verdict.
The worsening law and order situation has resurrected the debate on death penalty. The affected say the only way to prevent serious crimes such as armed robbery and murder is to hand out death penalty and tough punishment found in the legal systems of some West Asian countries.
But idealist opponents of the death penalty say crime can be curtailed if our criminal justice system is made more efficient. That might just be wishful thinking in a country, where not only politicians and state officials but also officials of the judiciary, the last bastion of people?s hope, are under a cloud.
Ameen Izzadeen is a Sri Lankan journalist based in Colombo |
mageychintana
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21 Nov 2006 17:16:22 GMT Report for Abuse
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Easier said than done. GOSL should start off by controling money supply and not resorting to seignorage.
Sandman,
What you say is true. Just imagine our potential if we werent burdened by political instability, war and corruption. It almost seems like a distant dream. |
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