Largest direct entrepreneur creation program gets ready to roll out

Industry, Commerce, Resettlement of Protracted Displaced Persons, Cooperative Development, Skills Development and Vocational Training Minister Rishad Bathiudeen (far left) joined by Ministry Secretary KDN Ranjith Ashoka (second from left) discusses Nanvamu Lanka on 6 August

• 100,000 new small businesses coming, says Rishad
• Move in support of PM Wickremesinghe’s SME vision

To develop entrepreneurship in Sri Lanka to much greater levels, the Ministry of industry and Commerce, with the IDB, will launch the largest such program in Sri Lanka, for the first time in the country’s SME history. 

“We believe the total SMEs here to be at around one million. Nanvamu Lanka is our effort to expand this base in a big way,” said Industry, Commerce, Resettlement of Protracted Displaced Persons, Cooperative Development, Skills Development, and Vocational Training Minister Rishad Bathiudeen on 6 August in Colombo. Minister Bathiudeen was in discussions with his top officials at the Ministry. 

“IDB and NEDA are supporting SMEs in many ways. The proposed Nanvamu Lanka will create more than 100,000 new entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka. This is the largest entrepreneur creation program launched so far in Sri Lanka. The Enterprise Sri Lanka series pioneered by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe aims to move people away from Government sector jobs to entrepreneurship. The Cabinet-approved Nanvamu Lanka too will support this vision. We categorise 75% of all Sri Lankan enterprises are to be SMEs but its total is only 230,000. Nanvamu Lanka will enhance this number by 100,000 by instituting new SMEs and directly supporting other SMEs for the first time,” said Minister Bathiudeen.

The State Trading Corporation (STC) under Minister Bathiudeen, with NEDA and IDB, is tasked to distribute SME material to new entrepreneurs under Nanvamu Lanka, which will also work on setting up new SMEs on allocations based on a District basis.