(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa told parliament on Thursday that he expected the economy to grow 7.5 per cent in three years, presenting the country's 2014 budget.
Reading out the budget for the ninth consecutive year, President Rajapaksa, who is also the Finance and Planning Minister said that he aims to reduce the budget deficit to 5.2 per cent next year and to a further 3.8 per cent by 2016 without curtailing any capital expenditures on infrastructure.
Last year the country's budget deficit was 6.4 per cent of GDP and in 2009 - at the end of the country's three-decade civil war - it was nearly 10 per cent. The government was required to cut the deficit under the terms of a $2.6 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund.
The budget was anticipated to be a "tough one" by opposition parties and local media, as it comes four days after the government spent more than Rs14 billion on a Commonwealth world leaders' summit held in Sri Lanka.
The main defunct opposition, the United National Party as well the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) refused to attend the budget proposal saying that the government had not delivered on the promises of this year's budget.
The government allocated Rs253 billion ($1.95 billion) for the Defence and Urban Development Ministry.
This year's budget proposal has more than fifty proposals with at reducing poverty, improving infrastructure facilities and for the first time, providing long term concessions to workers in the private sector.
"It also contains fiscal proposals that will accelerate the post-war development drive and consolidate the firm economic foundation laid by the eight previous budgets presented by the President," Finance Ministry sources said.
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