Trade wants Govt. to make peace with LTTE

By Nirupama Subramanian

COLOMBO, AUG. 21. Sri Lanka's business leaders are saying that the only way to restore international confidence in the country is to talk to the LTTE and find a negotiated settlement to the ethnic conflict.

``As a nation we have a choice: find peace or perish,'' said Mr. Parakrama Dissanayake, vice-president of the Ceylon Association of Shipping Agents, at a meeting of business representatives with the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe, on Monday.

In the last few days, the loudest voices in favour of the peace process have come from the business community. The attack on the airport and the consequent hikes in insurance rates not just on airlines operating to Sri Lanka, but also on shipping lines calling at Colombo Port, have hit business hardest.

With the port placed under the ``war risk'' category, ships have been bypassing it due to the high premiums. Freighter rates have shot up. Sri Lanka's export-oriented garment and tea industries are floundering as a result. With airlines jacking up fares to Sri Lanka and important Western countries putting out travel warnings against all non-essential travel to the country, the tourist industry faces a bleak future.

Garment manufacturers have warned that they will not be able to pay salaries if the situation continued into September. Tea bosses have said their produce will become uncompetitive in the world market. The Treasury Secretary, Mr. P.B. Jayasundera, said today that the revised GDP growth rate for 2001, taking into account the current situation in the country compounded by a bad year for agriculture, high oil prices and the effects of global recession, was about 3 per cent. That is down from the 4.5 per cent forecast.

The travel industry has said it would have no choice but to cut jobs with the possibility of its winter season, when most Western tourists visit the island, getting wiped out.

``People will be out on the streets. Already the cost of living is high, with this the crisis will deepen and there will be social unrest,'' one speaker, representing the garment industry, said. ``But peace will clear all these issues for the Government and enable us to get back into our businesses,'' he said.

The business community has been urging the Government and the Opposition, which are at loggerheads, to join hands in this hour of crisis and find a way out.

``The need of the hour is to give positive signals of political stability and restoration of the peace process (to the international community). This is the only cure for our industry, the economy and for the whole country,'' said Mr. Prema Cooray, who heads a leading travel firm.

The UNP leader responded by appealing for the support of the business community in the Opposition's efforts to unseat the People's Alliance Government and asked them to join in an Opposition rally on Thursday.

Mr. Wickremesinghe said he would participate in a national government of all political parties, only if the Sri Lankan President, Ms. Chandrika Kumaratunga, handed over to him the crucial portfolios of defence, finance and power.

``Chandrika is no longer part of the solution. She is the problem. We have to be in charge of running this Government,'' he said.

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Section  : International
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