Labour and Foreign Employment Minister Manusha Nanayakkara said that due to the correct economic management, foreign reserves has increased to 2.3 billion dollars which was down to US$ 50 million. The minister who further commented said “Foreign reserves had fallen below 50 million dollars a few months ago.We only had gold reserves. Today, we were able to raise foreign reserves to US$ 2.3 billion dollars.The expatriate workers and exports has helped to raise the foreign reserves”.
Despite request made by certain politically motivated persons, expatriate workers have been sending money to the country. Expatriate workers were asked not to remit money to Sri Lanka, but expatriate workers have sent US$ 580 million to the country last month alone.
“These monies made it possible for the people of our country to obtain medicine. The children of our country were able to go back to school. After three years, people were able to celebrate the New Year. Tourists are coming to Sri Lanka. The New Year celebrations have started again. We were able to save ourselves from being a bankrupt country. It has been revealed that 45 billion rupees were withdrawn from Bank of Ceylon’s ATM machines alone during the New Year season,” he added.
He added that the country got relief from the International Monetary Fund. Besides the IMF, the Asian Development Bank and the Paris Society are discussing how to help Sri Lanka. Our teams are negotiating with the World Bank team to get a lot of concessions. Japan is working to start development projects within our country.
“We are now doing the system change that people have been asking for so long. President Ranil Wickremesinghe has put aside party politics and is working to change the country. Taxes are collected from those who should to be taxed. Taxes are levied only on those who earn more than Rs.100,000. Only a few are taxed in this country,” he further added.