The Hon. Vijitha Herath
Vijitha Herath said that while the minimum wage had been USD 300 before 2019, subsequent shocks including the Easter Sunday attacks and COVID-19 led to an economic crisis, making recovery through remittances, tourism and exports a priority. He stated that any immediate redetermination of the minimum wage must consider reactions from relevant countries, but preliminary discussions are already under way as the economy stabilizes, with further action to follow.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Hon. Speaker, before 2019, the minimum wage was set at USD 300. However, after 2019, we faced the Easter Sunday attacks and then the COVID-19 pandemic. With those conditions, our economy fell into crisis. Thereafter, restoring the economy became a priority through foreign remittances, earnings from tourism, and export income. Today, we are gaining considerable revenue from those three streams. If we are to re-determine the minimum wage at once, we must consider the responses we might receive from each of the relevant countries. Nevertheless, parallel to the economy stabilizing to some degree, we are already conducting preliminary discussions to determine the minimum wage. Accordingly, we will take action in the future.
¶ 02 Thank you very much.
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- Hansard, Thursday, 19 June 2025 ·No. 1751430648025512 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
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Cite as: The Hon. Vijitha Herath. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 19 June 2025. No. 1751430648025512. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/27469