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Monday, 6 November 2017 00:50 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
The Government’s crucial mid-term Budget and the first for Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera is apparently getting its final touches not at the hallowed Treasury building but from within the once-famed designer’s Bolgoda Lake residence.
Sources said that since the long weekend holiday Minister Samaraweera’s ‘Rainbows End’ retreat at Bolgoda Lake has been a hive of activity with officials and policymakers discussing the final preparations for the 2018 Budget.
The Minister has been quite open about his confessed world’s first “Designer Budget”, saying it will be refreshingly different and short.
However, it will focus on a host of macro issues including fast-tracking liberalisation and reforms, empowering the private sector, youth and entrepreneurship, boosting exports and foreign direct investment, tapping the green and blue economy, gender empowerment, social infrastructure, safety nets, education, health and housing, reconciliation and revenue enhancement.