Hon. (Dr.) Harsha de Silva

¶ 01 articulate the Government's position, what our Foreign Policy objectives are and how we are allocating monies to meet those objectives. Madam, I am not going to go into that any further.

¶ 02 I think, Madam Chair, we need to think of our Foreign Policy in terms of an economic strategy. Forget all the rhetoric, you know, that we are non-aligned or whatever. Those are rhetoric; that is from the past. Now, we have got to be dynamic; we have got to understand how the world is moving, the new opportunities that are arising and use our Foreign Policy as an economic strategy. If you really look at the growth that we require, it is going to rely on external matters: exports, investments, remittances and tourism. Do not forget, even the debt restructure is an external matter. You know that it was because India and China agreed to restructure our debt that we were able to come out of the horrible state we were in and the reason why those countries helped us was because we had built a strong relationship both with India and China and they were ready to help us. So, think about this as an economic strategy going forward.

¶ 03 Then, I will take up a few other things. On the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Employment and Tourism, the most important thing, the way I see it, is Economic Diplomacy. If you click on the tab titled "Economic Diplomacy" - Madam Chair, in today’s context, everybody is online and now, we are talking about a digital Sri Lanka and so on and so forth - you would notice that they still talk about things that happened in 2018 and 2019. And, if you look into "Technical Cooperation" under "Economic Diplomacy", it states that the main ongoing special project is Expo Dubai in 2020 - we are in 2025 - and goes on to state about things that happened in 2020. Also, it states, "The Economic Affairs Division is the focal point of the following important regional organizations ...." et cetera.

¶ 04 At the moment, the biggest thing they are talking about is, overseas Sri Lankans. We want overseas Sri Lankans to invest in this country. Now, there is something called the Office for Overseas Sri Lankan Affairs. Then, I went to the website of the Sri Lankan High Commission in Australia, which is actually the Melbourne Office. You can just google it. When you go to the website of the Melbourne Office, it has the "Office for Overseas Sri Lankan Affairs" and there is a QR code. I tried to scan the QR code and go to the website. Assume I am an overseas Sri Lankan who wants to invest in Sri Lanka and I go to the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Employment and Tourism. What does it say when the QR code is scanned? It states, “Oops!”; that is what it says. “Oops!” is not a foreign policy. What does “Oops!” mean? It means that it does not exist. On your official website, you say economic diplomacy is key, you want investors to come in and that you are trying to attract overseas Sri Lankans to invest, but that Office does not exist! The Hon. Minister, in his reply, can say whether an Office for Overseas Sri Lankan Affairs actually exists in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Employment and Tourism.

¶ 05 Then, you look at exports. When we go to your website, under "Economic Diplomacy", we find "Invest in Sri Lanka", where you are talking about what happened in October, 2019! What is wrong with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Employment and Tourism? How is it necessary to have things that happened in 2019 on the website? Then - Madam, just look at this - if you go to "Trade with Sri Lanka" under "Economic Diplomacy", you find the trade activities conducted in 2018 and 2019: Australia/Sydney in 2018/2019, Bahrain in 2018, Havana in 2019, France/Paris in 2019 et cetera. I am bit critical, but I also want to be positive here. Kindly look at the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Employment and Tourism because that is your platform for investors, overseas Sri Lankans and our exporters. So, that must be done, first of all.

¶ 06 Now, if we look at the issues that we have been dealing with - the Hon. Minister did not speak about Geneva at all and I am not going to either - I must say that the Government has taken a reasonable middle path. I must say that. That reasonable middle path is different to what the Rajapaksas took. Here, the Opposition is not trying to take short-term political credit. We need a resolution to the problem that we have been facing for a long period of time. There is a four-pillar - truth and justice, accountability, reparation and non-recurrence - structure and what we need to do is to ensure that, based on that, we are actually interested in and devoted to establishing and implementing what we promised to the world, to the agencies in Geneva and elsewhere. Recently, the ITAK criticized the Government for appointing three out of five members of the Office for Reparations from the military sector. So, that would not work.

¶ 07 Then, you must understand the issues of our Sri Lankans overseas. We have two types of overseas Sri Lankans. One group is, those who go and work in West Asia and South-East Asia. They bring us remittances, well and good. They bring in the highest amount of dollars into the country and that is what that builds our foreign reserves. Then, there are those in the West, who sort of seem to have gotten left behind and who say, "You must try to understand the issues we are facing and you must talk to us". So, those are important things, I think, the Ministry must engage in, instead of talking about what happened five, six or seven years ago.

¶ 08 Also, think about the ocean surrounding us. The Hon. Minister spoke about IORA, but I think we lost an opportunity there. We are not just, literally, a State in the Indian Ocean, but we are the centre of the Indian Ocean. We talk about freedom of navigation, rules-based order in the Indian Ocean, data cables under the sea et cetera. Madam, we have to punch above our weight class. Sri Lanka is a small country, we always say - it is not that small, to start with, as we have 22 million people and the geography is also fairly large - but we have an amazing opportunity because of our positioning in the global context. Therefore, we must punch above our weight class.

¶ 09 So, in that context, we have to be able to make sure that our Foreign Policy is such that we balance the East and the West. India is important to us. We have to talk about trade agreements with India. But, unfortunately, nobody talks about the ETCA or the CEPA. I challenge the Government. The Hon. President and the Hon. Prime Minister visited India, but nothing was spoken about the ETCA; there was nothing in the Joint Statement, just like with China. China is absolutely important investment partner for us. For instance, look at the Colombo Port City. Now that the Chinese-Indian relationship has thawed and they are working together, there is an ideal geostrategic opportunity for us to take advantage of.

¶ 10 I am going to wind up, Madam. Just give me one last minute.

¶ 11 Tourism is the final point I want to deal with. In tourism, there are multiple issues to deal with. I do not know whether US Dollars 175 per person per day - that is, US Dollars 350 per couple - is actually true and if that is not true, you have to have the correct data in order to have strategies to ensure that we get the tourism industry right.

¶ 12 If we take the proposed tourism Act, there were reasons why it was broken into three. If you have other reasons to consolidate it, then you must be logical about it. I understand, it is a skewed distribution. There are only a few large players and many small players. I understand that you need to bring in the small players also, but ensure that you have the industry's support for doing that.

¶ 13 Thank you very much for giving me time, Madam.