The proposal made by Finance and Media Minister Mangala Samaraweera to implement the 'Enterprise Sri Lanka' Interest Subsidy Loan Scheme was approved by the Cabinet yesterday. The Cabinet of Ministers approved to establish a Secretariat at the Ministry of Finance and Media to coordinate the implementation and promotion of the Enterprise Sri Lanka exhibitions under the theme, "Vision 2025". The Enterprise Sri Lanka programme was one of the main proposals presented by Minister Samaraweera in his 2018 Blue-Green budget.
The government expects to disburse LKR 60,000 million through state and private banks to would be entrepreneurs and another LKR 5000 million has been set aside by the Treasury to reimburse the interest subsidy to the banks. Accordingly, 16 different loan schemes have been proposed to aide a new entrepreneur class in the fields of Agro, fisheries industries as well as for small and medium enterprises.
Minister Samaraweera said that apart from young entrepreneurs, women and differently abled persons will also be provided special opportunities to take part in this programme. Women and differently abled persons who come forward to take part in this programme will be offered additional interests subsidy of 10% and 15% more respectively.
Samaraweera stated that the government's objective is to ensure that no entrepreneur is ever denied credit due to the lack of collateral, but is able to access financing given viability of the project proposals.
"The government expects the SME sector to be the backbone of the economy. However, the lack of capital or the difficulty in accessing capital due to both the cost of capital and the requirement for collateral have been the main impediments in the development of start ups of the SMEs", Samaraweera said. The Enterprise Sri Lanka loan schemes will be ceremonially launched by the President and the Prime Minister on 22 June at the BMICH.
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