Giving Priority To Local Constructors

By Hema Senanayake –August 28, 2015

Hema Senanayake

We have a corporate sector. And a few of corporate leaders recently had spoken to Sri Lanka Daily News about the new government. One of them made a comment and a request for which I paid a little more attention. This article is about it. In fact the article is not about his particular comment or request, instead this article is about an economic principle on which the government should establish an important national policy in regard to his request. I believe his request merits in establishing such a national policy.

So, recently, Dr. Rohan Karunaratne, President of Ceylon Institute of Builders had commented as follows;

“… with the change of presidency in January some of the on going development projects were halted due to various reasons. “We hope that the government would look at to any irregularities if any and re-commence these projects as the industry is facing problems due to this.” “We also request the new government that they give priority to local constructors when awarding future projects” (Daily News).

Construction is an important sector in the economy. Even though I do not know the exact percentage of the contribution of this sector to GDP, I imagine the figure could be well over 20%. Hence, this sector in the economy is so important in creation of the nation’s wealth and a lot of direct and indirect employments. This sector will remain so in the next five years too. Now, on behalf of the people who have direct business or employment interest in this sector, Dr. Karunaratne requests that, “the new government gives priority to local constructors when awarding future (development) projects.”

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