Us Ambassador for Sri Lanka and Maldives Alaina B. Teplitz yesterday said at the 27 Annual General Meeting of the American Chamber of Commerce in Sri Lanka that US is supporting Sri Lanka for fast recovery of its tourism industry from the Easter attacks.
The meeting was held at the Montblanc, Movenpick Hotel, Colombo.
She said they are looking at a US- Sri Lanka tourism alliance and they love the Sri Lankan initiative.
She said Sri Lanka would need support of provisions for its entrepreneurship curriculum. The US will support it by providing vocational and technical educators.
She said the US has partnered with over 60 small and medium businesses including multiple business sectors all over Sri Lanka and the results have been impressive.
She said the businesses concerned have created 8,000 jobs. “Over 5,000 micro enterprises have benefited from our support,” she said.
She said the US government aims to achieve free, fair and reciprocal and transparent economic growth through its programs.
“We believe that this growth could be achieved only with the partnership of the private sector,” she said
Referring to the US Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Development Assistance program, Teplitz pointed out that there have been certain negative speculations that have manifest around it. She said the US Government and Sri Lanka developed it last year for catalyzed economic growth.
“The proposed project is a five-year program which will be funded with 80 million US dollars from the people of the United States to Sri Lanka. This is not a loan and will not be added to the balance sheet of Sri Lanka as a result,” she said.
Once the program is accomplished there will be two components, the transportation infrastructure and land administration sectors, which are identified as the key elements of the program, she said.
The network of roads in the Sabaragamuwa and Uva Provinces where tea, rubber, fruits and vegetables are grown, that small and medium entrepreneurs need to get them to the ports of Colombo and to the markets, will be developed under the transportation infrastructure development component of this program, she said.
She said these are programs of the government, and there are no new programs envisioned under the MCC Development Assistance Program.
“I am emphasizing this because there has a lot of bad information about this in the public space,” she said.
(Daily News)