Mangala promises SME support package in his “designer budget”
The 2018 budget will feature significant support for small and medium enterprises (SMES) to compete in global markets, according to Finance and Mass Media Minister Mangala Samaraweera, whose ministry in an earlier occasion said Samaraweera would present a “designer budget” this November.
“For too long Sri Lanka’s exports have been dominated by corporate giants and we now are in the process of empowering the SME sector. In fact, it will be one of my major themes of the budget to be presented next week,” he said yesterday.
Samaraweera, who was speaking at the ‘Tech4trade’ seminar organised by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Ceylon Chamber
of Commerce, said he hopes with this support, SMES will become the driver of export growth in the future, in line with the government’s ‘Vision 2025’ plan.
However, Samaraweera did not specify in what form—by way of tax incentives or financing—these SME empowerment proposals will be incorporated into the upcoming budget. Former Central Bank Deputy Governor W.A. Wijewardena, who reviewed the ‘Tax Policy in Sri Lanka: Economic Perspectives’ publication of the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS), launched earlier this month, said that based on a research paper in the publication authored by Anushka Wijesinha and Raveen Ekanayake, 93 percent of the country’s SMES do not pay tax.