Chairman, Your Excellencies, friends,  BIS Review 11/2007  1  Over the next few years, we are also very keen to deal with two key disparities prevailing in our country. These are: (a) regional disparity in economic development, and (b) significant income disparity between the poor and rich. Creating more opportunities within the regions outside the Western Province and encouraging village development and human resource development at all levels, hopefully the need to reduce poverty significantly, and address income inequality. These efforts therefore would need to be pursued with renewed enthusiasm, as already vowed in the Mahinda Chinthana, the President’s development plan for the nation. We are also deeply conscious that for the country to achieve its macro-economic goals, the monetary policy too should play a key role. Towards that end, the monetary policy framework adopted by the Central Bank has been made consistent with the government’s macroeconomic framework. Accordingly, the 2007 targets in the monetary programme of the Central Bank have been set, after taking into consideration the potential growth and liquidity needs of the economy to move along the projected growth path while keeping inflationary pressures in check. Your Excellency, In November 2006, the Government of your Excellency announced its medium-term macroeconomic framework within a 10-year development framework. This programme targets an 8 per cent growth for the next six years and 9-10 per cent thereafter. These are tough targets. But these are achievable. When striving towards such goals, we must remember that our development focus should always be clear.
Ajith Nivard Cabraal: Macroeconomic background and outlook for 2007 Presentation by Mr Ajith Nivard Cabraal, Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, at the Sri Lanka Development Forum – 2007, Colombo, 29-30 January 2007. *  *  *  Your Excellency President Mahinda Rajapaksa, President of Sri Lanka, Hon Chairman, Hon Ministers, Your Excellencies, Development Partners and friends, In the next few minutes, I will endeavour to give you a quick update of Sri Lanka’s macroeconomic achievements in 2006 and also share with you, some thoughts on the outlook for 2007. As we now know, the Sri Lankan economy recorded a growth of 7.8 per cent in the first three quarters of 2006 and according to current available data, it is very likely that the economic growth in 2006 would be well over 7 per cent. Unemployment recorded its lowest level of 6.3% during the year. Our international reserves increased by nearly 5 per cent. Exports, imports and FDI grew significantly. Many major infrastructure development projects commenced. A large number of village development projects were implemented. Migrant worker remittances reached the highest ever level of over US dollar 2.3 billion. These achievements by any standards, would have been considered significant. But, in the light of several major challenges faced by the country during 2006, these achievements could very well be even considered quite remarkable.