Professionals key to development: PB

Wednesday, 22 June 2011 01:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

By Cassandra Mascarenhas

Development in Sri Lanka is in the hands of professionals, said Treasury Secretary Dr. P.B. Jayasundera yesterday, insisting that this would be the crucial factor to take commercial success to the global level.

Praising the profession of accountancy in Sri Lanka, Dr. Jayasundera called for practitioners in all commercial fields to follow what he called the success story of accountancy in Sri Lanka in order to take the country through the developmental process and to commercial success on a global scale, making Sri Lanka an emerging wonder of Asia.

Speaking at the inauguration of the CIMA Business Leaders Summit 2011 held yesterday, Dr. Jayasundera went on to say that although Sri Lanka had set for itself an ambitious journey in terms of economic development and various targets in the years ahead, he assured that it was a feasible one.

“People believe that investment by various parties is necessary for this whole process. However, I prefer to describe a particular investment alone – that of human capital which is what this gathering is about, which in turn will help the country graduate into a knowledge-based economy,” the Secretary said.

He credited the accountancy profession for continuing to grow even during the years of the conflict, which he said was a result of it growing in the environment of the private sector, adding that it was not even recognised as part of economic development by the public sector.

“We have high prospects for development strategies for the country in the coming decade. I think that the theme of ‘Changing Challenge – Challenging Change’ adopted by CIMA this year is a good one as we move from a phase of pessimism to one of optimism. In Sri Lanka many of us have gone through this process and we have begun our journey after the conflict with a much more advanced phase, by setting our sights to our graduation to a middle income economy,” he stated.

The Ministry of Finance and Planning, he further explained, feels that Sri Lanka when it comes to several variables should be on a low gear and such aspects include low employment, low inflation which has been achieved after decades in the country, lower poverty profile, which he added was like no other seen in this region, lower budget deficit and debt and so on.

At the same time, the Ministry also understands that the country has to be on a higher gear in terms of other variables which include economic growth, which they hope will be higher this year in comparison to last year’s eight per cent, higher investments, higher internal reserves, higher infrastructure drive, etc.

“Accountancy has taken Sri Lanka to the global network and the controversy that we usually see between the private and public sectors has yet to be seen in this profession and as we build a service-based economy and other commercial activities, it is a success story which should be looked upon to achieve the targets that have been set,” he concluded.