Thumbs-up for banning cattle slaughter

• Export cattle and stop beef import (and liquor and cigarettes as well)

Whilst fully endorsing Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa’s proposal to ban cattle slaughter, I would suggest that we shouldn’t import beef as a solution for same. Rather, we should export cattle (bulls) and increase our export earnings. 

As the Government’s intention is also to reduce the substantial amount of foreign exchange spent on imported milk powder, won’t the earnings be nullified by importing beef?

Moreover, we should stop importing both cigarettes and liquor and this will no doubt enable us to make a considerable saving on invaluable foreign exchange and this will result in a surplus in Sri Lanka’s balance of payments.

Hope State Minister for Money and Capital Market and State Enterprise Reforms Ajith Nivard Cabraal will kindly consider the above requests as saving foreign exchange is the need of the hour in this post-COVID-19 pandemic new normal situation and then we can expect  even Moody’s Investors Service to reconsider our rating which has been downgraded very recently!

Mohamed Zahran

Colombo