President Ranil Wickramasinghe said that he had given instructions to the officials including the Minister of State in charge to give a report within a month on the acceleration of the program to move the country towards a digital economy. The President mentioned this while attending the opening of the Daras headquarters established at Alvitigala Mawatha, Colombo 08.
President Ranil Wickramasinghe who further commented said:
“It can be said that the establishment of Daras in Sri Lanka shows the opportunity for e-commerce in Sri Lanka and points the way for it.
We are now in the era of e-commerce, but the initiation of e-commerce in our country was delayed. The Minister of State, myself, the Secretary and several other officials discussed together how to start and speed up this digitization process and how to pave the way for it. Accordingly, I informed them to give a report regarding the digital economy within a month.
We are making every effort to create a digital economy in the country. I don’t think we really need to reinvent the process. Because I think we will be able to easily use this technical system in South India, Tamil Nadu. I am ready to negotiate with India in this regard.
Taking the Revenue Administration Management Information System (RAMIS) as an example, I spoke about it when I was the Prime Minister in 1993. But we are still discussing it in 2023. Accordingly, you can imagine how much time we have spent on these activities. Like me, the parliament also wants to complete the work of moving the country towards a digital economy, including RAMIS, by the end of this year.
We have to go hand in hand with the digital economy and the green economy. Today, the green economy in Asia has become a business. That business is worth $5 trillion. Now we don’t need 5 trillion. A few billions would be enough.
Presidential Media Unit