Govt. mulls over curtailing expenditure on imported paper

By Saman Indrajith

State Minister of Samurdhi, Household Economy, Micro Finance, Self-Employment, Business Development and Underutilised State Resources Development, Shehan Semasinghe, told Parliament yesterday that the government’s attention had been drawn to find ways and means of curtailing its expenditure on paper.

Responding to a question raised by SLPP MP Mohammed Muzammil, the Minister said that around Rs. 369 billion had been spent on paper imports during the period 2015-2019. 

The government had decided to bring down that cost, the Minister said, noting that special attention had been paid to promoting electronic correspondence. He said several systematic measures had been taken in that regard.

The Minister said that a proper programme would be implemented in the future to protect the environment and reduce the huge cost of paper imports; factories had been set up to produce high quality paper that could compete internationally on the instructions of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, he said. The government was planning to promote paper production in the country and decided to simplify the tax policy to attract investors.

The Minister said that the new government had simplified the tax regime and introduced an easy tax collection system, which would make it easier for all small and medium enterprises.

All banks and financial institutions had been issued directives to simplify process of providing information to the Credit Information Bureau (CRIB) and a new credit rating system would be introduced in the near future, he said.