Union Minister for Finance & Corporate Affairs, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman delivered a Keynote Address at the inauguration of the 20^th  Edition of Sri Lanka Economic Summit (SLES)  2020 in virtual format, today. SLES annually organized by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (CCC) is the premier forum in Sri Lanka for discussion on economic and business issues. The theme for this year’s event is “Roadmap for Take-off: Driving a People –Centric Economic Revival”. President of Sri Lanka H.E. Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa was the Chief Guest at the Inaugural Session.

The Finance Minister highlighted the measures taken by India to address the challenges related to pandemic. Talking on the economic take-off for Sri Lanka leveraging on the key policy levers, the Finance Minister in her keynote address said that India’s ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan’ and the vision of ‘Self Reliant Sri Lanka’, are synergistic and complementary and could be used to further consolidate the economic rejuvenation efforts by both countries. She also highlighted that cooperation between India and Sri Lanka would be beneficial for a sustained growth that is so essential for people centric development by both countries.

The Finance Minister highlighted that India has been a strong partner in development cooperation relations with Sri Lanka and expressed readiness to continue meaningful economic cooperation for mutual benefits. She also highlighted the importance of regulatory consistency and policy certainty for industry and private sector.   

Economic cooperation and regulatory consistency underpin India-Sri Lanka partnership to support people centric economic revival and sustained growth. The address advocates aligning India's and Sri Lanka's self reliance strategies to foster bilateral economic cooperation aimed at people centric revival, stressing that regulatory consistency and policy certainty are essential to attract industry and private sector participation and to sustain development partnership.