Ranil Wickremesinghe

Programme financing gaps: debt service reduction during 2023-27 should be sufficient to close external financing gaps. Under staff baseline scenario, US$17 billion in debt service reduction is required, including the arrears accumulated in 2022 So, we are trying to get a 17 billion debt reduction on that side. Do you want it or not.

In 2019, there were 1.5 million income tax files in total…when we abolished the PAYE tax, in December 2021, we [only] had 400,000 income tax files. It reduced from 1.5 million to 400,000.

In other countries, most of the taxes are collected from a higher income bracket. In 2021, in India – 50% direct tax…Bangladesh – direct tax 32%...Nepal – direct 31%....69%. Indonesia – direct tax 40%...Vietnam – direct tax 31%...Thailand – direct taxes 37%...Malaysia – direct tax 66%...However the situation in our country is different. In 2021, our direct tax was 21% while indirect was 79%. We should take action to rectify this tax divergence. Then, the tax burden on the general public will be reduced.

The government being the owner of around 80 percent of land will take measures to facilitate access to land with suitable utilities for domestic and foreign investment.

The loss of SriLankan Airlines in the year 2020-2021 alone is Rs. 45 billion. By 31st March 2021, the total loss was at 372 billion.

Colombo was the highest ranked South Asian city, but still only stood at 137 out of 231 cities. At least 15 Asian cities are in the bottom 50 of this ranking.