Colombo: Sri Lanka’s business community says they are ready to resume business activities with in full confidence in national security.
The Ministry of Finance states that several proposals will be submitted to the Cabinet tomorrow on the advice of President Maithripala Sirisena to restore the country’s tourism industry impacted by the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks.
Financial Ministry officials disclosed this at a meeting between President Maithripala Sirisena and members of commerce chambers held at the Presidential Secretariat this afternoon.
Expressing their views, the Chambers of commerce members and the tourism sector business community said pointed out that they are prepared to move forward with confidence in the country’s security forces.
The business community pointed out that although the security forces have been able to affirm national security to all in the country by launching a comprehensive operation against terrorism, the activities of the tourism industry and other sectors have been hampered due to the lack of dissemination of that information to the international community. They pointed out the need for a proper mechanism to disseminate that information to all the communities.
At the discussion, the necessity of making a common public statement refraining from hate speech and false propaganda was emphasized since the day-to-day work has been hindered by different parties making different statements.
They suggested that strengthening the intelligence services would be more beneficial to create a good environment within the tourism industry in order to prevent the inconvenience to tourists when providing security to the hotels under the new security arrangements by deploying security forces and using scanners.
The business representatives also drew President’s attention to several other issues and made suggestions on the measures to be taken to resolve those issues.
Expressing his views, President Sirisena said that all stakeholders can completely trust the Security Forces.
The President said that by now all sectors including schools, government offices and business sectors are in a position to resume their day-to-day activities and that there is no need to hinder daily routines.
The President said what he wants is to eliminate this terror challenge from the country as soon as possible and restore normalcy and he would take every possible measure for that.
He emphasized the importance of uplifting the tourism industry, which is an important contribution to the country’s national economy, and assured to provide all necessary facilities to the industry to bounce back.
Chairman of Ceylon Chamber of Commerce Rajendra Theagarajah, Deputy Chairman Vish Govindsam, Director General Dhara Wijetilleke and several other board members and the business community of the tourism industry were also present.
