Vision 2025 (A Country Enriched).

Vision 2025 is to make Sri Lanka a rich country by transforming Sri Lanka into the hub of the Indian Ocean, with a knowledge-based, highly competitive, social-market economy. We will create an environment where all citizens have the opportunity to achieve higher incomes and better standards of living. To achieve this is necessary to create the conditions which will generate economic growth with equity. The structural transformation necessary to achieve this vision is currently underway. The ‘Empowered Sri Lanka’ document laid the foundation for this transformation by identifying the priorities of raising incomes, ensuring employment and housing for all, and improving the quality of life for all citizens (pag. 11).
Over the next three years, the 2025 Vision, will implement a comprehensive economic strategy to address constraints to growth, aiming to raise income, create new jobs, increase quality life, and double exports. These intermediate targets lay the foundation for our Vision 2025: Sri Lanka to become an upper-middle income country. The Government will facilitate efficiency in agricultural markets, crop production and improvement, agribusiness development, establishment of large-scale agro-enterprises, and introduction of high yield crops. Major initiatives include a National Food Production Programme, establishing agricultural megazones, and strengthening value chain development. A national level policy action on food quality and permitted fertilizer levels will be introduced, ensuring that organic products are sufficiently available in markets (pag. 42). A strong and stable macroeconomic foundation will lay the basis for a broader reform effort, encouraging efforts to raise agriculture productivity and offer price support to cushion the domestic smallholder sector against global price shocks. We will also provide economic security to the less well-off through stronger social safety nets to mitigate their vulnerability to shocks (pag. 51)
The Government will standardise occupations with internationally accepted certifications and licensing, to improve social acceptance, employability and service delivery. It will establish a contributory retirement benefit system for informal sector employees to minimise the likelihood of poverty after retirement (pag. 27).
The social market economy principles will foster and sustain successful institutions and policy, strong market structures, and a fairer society. The private sector will play a key role: achieving high productivity, innovating, enhancing quality, as well as investing and creating new jobs. The Government will coordinate with the private sector to make the economy competitive and successful in the global environment. The Vision aims at encouraging the private sector to conduct skill development programmes and to improve labour productivity. Governmental vocational training institutes will align their curricula with National Vocational Qualifications (NVQ). An incentive structure for SME agribusinesses to invest in commercial agriculture and value chains will be introduced. This will promote partnership arrangements between the private sector and smallholder producers; demonstrate new technologies to enhance productivity, resilience, and diversification; and promote technology diffusion (pag. 42).
The Vision will ensure prosperity for future generations while enabling present growth and adherence to the UN sustainable development goals. Therefore the Government will undertake agricultural reforms to minimise food insecurity, and create inclusive growth by developing underserved districts. Recognising the dangers of climate change, we will prioritise environmental protection and disaster management, and energy security. To enable these, we will undertake fundamental reforms in governance (pag. 41). The Government will take steps to improve disaster management. The Government has already established a disaster insurance scheme under the National Insurance Trust Fund (NITF) that insures every house in Sri Lanka against natural disasters. A National Disaster Reserve Fund for financing post-disaster reconstruction will be established. The Government will resettle high risk communities living in landslide prone areas. Hazard, vulnerability and risk assessment will be undertaken and insurance schemes will be introduced for economically important sectors (pag. 45).