(UDHAYAM, COLOMBO) – Colombo city will be developed to the best urban centre in the Indian Ocean within the next decade, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said.
“A global trends-oriented development will assure better living conditions for people in Sri Lanka,” Premier Wickremesinghe said.
Prime Minister Wickremesinghe was speaking at the inauguration of the Logistic City in Muthurajawela, which is a project included in mega-polis development. He said taking Sri Lanka’s geographical location into consideration; it can be turned into the focal economic zone in the India Ocean.
“Sri Lanka should be introduced with a system where economic policies will not change following changes in the ruling party of a government,” the Prime Minister said.
“This service city is established with the wish to generate job opportunities for our youth in Sri Lanka and at the larger scale, to turn this country from a ‘dweepa’ (an island) to a ‘maha dweepa’ (a giant land).
We have a plan for this great transformation. Minister of Mega-polis has taken this responsibility into his hands,” PM Wickremesinghe said.
“We are in the process where to stop listening to country being called a ‘developing country’ and instead hear it being called a ‘developed country.
When India was an economic and global giant in ancient times, Sri Lanka was the economic center in the Indian Ocean,” the Premier pointed out. “To one end we have Dubai and to the other end we have Singapore.
These cities were built up on maritime and airway services. Our people migrate to work in these cities.
It is much better if we can create such an emporium in Sri Lanka instead,” Prime Minister Wickremesinghe pointed out.
Prime Minister Wickremesinghe also pointed out for large scale development projects, foreign investments are a must. He said the government, which is going through a debt crisis, cannot afford these development projects.
“It does not matter from which country the investors come,” the Premier said.
“Say it is Chinese, Japanese or Korean, we must grab these opportunities.
We also need the technical know-how which can be derived from these foreign investors.
It is not a simple task to generate one million job opportunities for Sri Lankan youth,” the Prime Minister pointed out.
Premier Wickremesinghe said the unity government lead by President Maithripala Sirisena is on a journey towards a country that would not change its policies with political changes.
The joining of the two major political parties strengthens the country’s development process,” he also said.