Tourism crisis: CB Chief to meet banks, finance companies again

The Central Bank Governor Dr. Indrajit Coomaraswamy will meet banks and finance companies tomorrow (11 July) to expedite support via moratorium and working capital assistance for the tourism sector businesses hit by the Easter Sunday attacks. Tourism Minister John Amaratunga said yesterday there are complaints that some banks and finance companies were not adhering to the Government’s directive to grant relief to the tourism industry.

He stressed that all should comply with the Government request to grant the relief to the tourism sector; else their licences would be cancelled.

With all these initiatives being rolled out in an effective way to revive the tourism industry, Amaratunga expressed his confidence that Sri Lanka would be able to achieve estimated of 2.5 million tourist arrivals by the end of the year.

“At this moment things are quite normal. There is no threats of any terrorism or any terrorist organisation. We have taken a number of initiatives to revive the industry. Although we thought there would be a major drop in the lean period, it is not bad as we thought — the traffic is now increasing. With all these initiative I am confident we could achieve our original estimate of 2.5 million tourist arrivals by the end of the year,” he said.

He also noted that approval has been given for the operation of domestic airlines and that it is now a question of selecting the companies.