The Hon. Arjuna Sujeewa Senasinghe, Attorney-at-Law

¶ 01 Without production we cannot progress. With Hon. Gayantha’s help, during my time we set up a 400-acre trade zone at Millaniya under a public–private partnership — roads and all within seven months. When credit would go to me, Malik Samarawickrama and Ranil Wickremesinghe stopped it. Now this Government plans to re-release it to Dhammika Perera; we had to struggle to take that land from him and from a BOI entity, 200 acres each. Yet the President’s development plan does not even mention Millaniya — 400 acres on the other side of the expressway; prime land. We engaged Thailand’s Rojana Industrial Parks — they operate six zones and contribute 10 percent to Thailand’s income. We are not petty; we will help.

¶ 02 My export strategy — I led it across two ministries for nearly three years — was funded with grants, not loans: EUR 4–5 million. We need to develop at least 5,000 acres for electronics manufacturing. After apparel, we should have moved into electronics. But since 1994 we lacked continuous governance to do it; because of Ranil we could not form a Government. COPE noted that in the 1980s under Gamini Dissanayake, 30 percent of transformers were locally made.

¶ 03 Hon. Speaker

¶ 04 Hon. Member, your time is over.