Dr Sarath Obeysekera 

Every day we read and hear about the way tourism has suffered and how not only airlines ,hotels ,and eating houses and even tuk tuk drivers are suffering .

During one of the meeting hosted by EDB I mentioned about the problem we are facing to get insurance policies for industries .Industires are facing problems in the port,customs ,transport of raw materials and delays everywhere.We cannot get workers to report to work.Productivity at rock bottom and people are suffering due to drastic reduction of income.

Countries like Vietnam ,Cambodia ,Laos and even Indonesia had such downturns and yet they bounced back.

These countries just forgot tourism and concentrated on local production and their agriculture .

(The knives recovered should be used to make sickles and hammers ?)

Let us try to create more blue economy related industries in fishery etc .

Let us us create marinas and get local tourism in the forefront.

Government should get the bureaucracy back to work.

Install a strong minister of Local Government who can make all local state institutions get back in action.

It is time to open our eyes and look for other avenues to carry on with the life of people without talking about tourism knives swords and Facebook postings.