A budget which saves money for essential services: UNP – Daily Mirror

UNP Minister Eran Wickramaratne said the Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera had done a tremendous job by securing macroeconomic fundamentals and raising revenue so that more funds could be made available for essential services such as education, health and social transfers.

He said the finance minister had also managed to keep the budget deficit low, adding that 2018 would be a challenging year because the country would have to repay the highest debt in history.

“This budget has emphasized on building human capital rather than on hard infrastructure. That is a right decision because spending on human capital will help Sri Lanka to have a unique touch over the countries in the region. We won’t be exporting cheap labour any more as more funds have been allocated to develop universities and vocational training centres in the country,’ he said. (Ajith Siriwardana and Yohan Perera)