COSMI welcomes President’s initiative

Sri Lanka’s Confederation of Micro, Small and Medium Industries (COSMI) yesterday welcomed President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s initiative to remove taxes on face masks and suspend the recovery of loans to businesses and SMEs by banks in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak in the country. 

 “We welcome President Gotabaya Rajapaksa for his initiative to remove taxes from mask imports. Our SMEs face the brunt of the coronavirus spread. We also praise his suspension of recovery of loans to businesses and SMEs by banks. Helping SMEs is helping our people,” said COSMI, Founder President, Nawaz Rajabdeen on Wednesday.

President Rajapaksa this week announced a six-month suspension of loan recovery by banks and finance companies for businesses with 4 percent working capital loans for businesses.  Rajabdeen empathised that SMEs were suffering the most from the current slowdown in economic activities due to coronavirus outbreak in the country.

“More than 60 percent of enterprises and 40 percent of employment come from SMEs. Therefore, SMEs are a key provider of livelihoods. With the slowdown in economic activities due to coronavirus, SME activities as well as their employees have got affected. This means, economically, our SMEs are facing the brunt of the problem,” he added. 

Further praising the President Rajapaksa’s initiatives, Rajabdeen stressed COSMI members are ready to extend their fullest cooperation to the government to revive the sector.