COLOMBO, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- The Sri Lankan government has decided to establish a State-Owned Enterprise Restructuring Unit to help with the restructuring of state-owned enterprises, President Ranil Wickremesinghe said on Tuesday while presenting the Interim Budget 2022 in the parliament.
Wickremesinghe said about 556,000 U.S. dollars have been allocated to implement the unit establishment proposal.
Some of the state-owned enterprises have been seeing losses for long due to structural issues, he said, adding that the treasury cannot keep on funding these entities and a mechanism to make them effective needs to be found.
Significant fiscal risks arise from a few state-owned enterprises, particularly SriLankan Airlines, Ceylon Electricity Board and the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, said the president.
He also said value-added tax will be increased from 12 percent to 15 percent effective from Sept. 1 and the retirement age of government and semi-government employees will be reduced to 60 years. ■
