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| PM tells India: Let's build common future from our common past
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe said yesterday close integration between South India and Sri Lanka would help both to improve economically. Mr. Wickremesinghe speaking at the Millennium Lecture 2003 at the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation said the proposed bridge between Rameswaran in Tamil Nadu and Talaimannar in Sri Lanka would be one of the steps of integration, which would benefit both countries. "With road and rail links this would be a major step towards sub-regional economic integration and would offer both sides of the Palk Straits huge economic benefits," he said Mr. Wickremesinghe said it would be to the advantage of both countries to have greater access to the sea-lanes and this would benefit the entire sub-regional economy to have greater competition in port and sea trade services. "But the potential benefits of the land bridge are enormous. It would greatly reduce the cost of moving goods in both directions and encourage trade in a wide range of goods and services that are currently unviable. There will also be an opportunity for Tamil Nadu to export electricity to Sri Lanka and for businesses to gain more cost effective access to international shipping. It would also provide improved access through Sri Lankan ports to exporters in Tamil Nadu," he said. "Consider what such a development could mean for some of the areas that would be physically closest to a land bridge. In both countries these areas are less developed than other parts of Tamil Nadu or Sri Lanka. South India is likely to be considerably more competitive in export manufacturing than is Sri Lanka. With a land bridge it would be more commercially attractive to establish special economic zones on the Tamil Nadu side of the bridge that could give access to the ports of South India both West and East Coast and the ports of Sri Lanka thereby improving transport links to export to the rest of the world", he said. Mr. Wickremesinghe said there was a good opportunity to develop southern districts of India as a sub-regional sector to become an important global manufacturing base on par with anything that had been developed in China. "There is a very real opportunity for this sub-regional center to become an important global manufacturing base, on par with anything that has been developed in China. This will create millions of jobs in Southern Tamil Nadu and make the whole area prosperous. Even Northern Sri Lanka will benefit from this rapid economic development. Sri Lanka's role in the sub-regional economy would tend to be more towards the provision of services- not only the ports and airports, but also by supplying financial, logistics and business development services", he said. "Both building the land bridge and the economic activity specially the global marketing base would provide employment to large numbers of people and raise income substantially in South India as well as Sri Lanka- win-win development that could change the economic map of our region," Mr. Wickremesinghe said. "The implementation of a land bridge and the substantial economic benefits that it would bring depends entirely on a durable settlement of the ethnic conflict that has affected our country for nearly two decades. Therefore the policing of the land bridge is also an important aspect that has to be taken into consideration. But peace will not be achieved tomorrow. Nor would a land bridge connecting our countries be built tomorrow. Both initiatives require planning and patience and for us to share a confidence and optimism about the future," Mr. Wickremesinghe said. "With peace both our peoples can expect greater prosperity. With greater regional cooperation we can share in that joint prosperity. Let us build a common future from our common past. All it requires is the imagination, the leadership which we have in both our countries specially in South India and the commitment to shake off the shackles of the past, bring peace to this part of the region and to make our people rich," Mr. Wickremesinghe said. Maligawa
chief rejects govt. claims on Tiger radio "We cannot accept that position as the radio station for the LTTE was established with the newly acquired equipment and permission was not granted for the clandestine radio they were already operating," Mr. Wijeyeratne told The Sunday Times.Mr. Wijeyeratne rejecting comments made by Mass Communication Minister Imtiaz Bakeer Markar in Parliament on Thursday that the Tamil guerrillas were permitted to operate a radio station in the north because they were operating a clandestine radio station said that the equipment itself was imported two weeks after the Maligawa had sought permission to operate a radio station. 'The government cannot take that position, because the new station was established with the newly imported equipment and that the LTTE was not seeking legal status for the existing station," he said. The minister was responding to a question in Parliament from the JVP's Wimal Weerawansa who asked on what basis the LTTE was granted a licence to operate a radio station when the government had turned down a request to set up a private radio station for the Dalada Maligawa in 2002, prior to the LTTE seeking permission for their radio station. |
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