Sunil Handunnetthi says roadside vendors need knowledge, capital, technology and land access, not sympathy purchases, to escape poverty.
Handunnetthi says uplifting local entrepreneurs requires more than buying their products, stressing that they must become stakeholders in a formal production chain.
Minister of Industry Sunil Handunnetthi made the remarks while addressing an event, where he said poverty among innocent families selling vegetables and fruits by the roadside cannot be eradicated through sympathy alone.
The Minister said such families must be incorporated into an organised entrepreneurial process if they are to escape poverty and become part of the country’s production economy.
He pointed out that simply buying all the products from a roadside vendor at once cannot develop that family in a sustainable way.
Instead, Handunnetthi said they must be given the necessary knowledge, technology, capital, and land facilities, allowing them to become active stakeholders in the national production process.
The Minister also revealed that steps have been taken, on the initiative of the President, to create a land bank as a solution to land-related issues faced by industrialists.
He said requests have already been made to allocate unused lands belonging to state institutions such as the Mahaweli Authority, Janawasama, and the Land Reform Commission for this purpose.
Handunnetthi further stated that steps will be taken together with financial sector institutions to solve the financial crises faced by entrepreneurs.
He said the government is committed to protecting local industries, even in the face of international laws and tax reforms.
The Minister also said the government must identify threats posed by imports to local production and make the necessary interventions to strengthen local businessmen through import substitution.
“Have you ever looked at a person by the roadside selling a few drumsticks, avocados, pears, a few small vegetables, a few fruits, whose family cannot make ends meet, and thought countless times, ‘If I gave all the money in my hand and bought all of this, could this person become rich?’ I have thought like that. There is no one here who hasn’t thought like that. Everyone thinks that way.
“Did you not think that if you bought all these pears, all these drumsticks, all these limes, this entire family would prosper? We have thought like that. You cannot eradicate poverty that way. Because even if we give all the money in our hands and buy all those pears, the next day they will have brought another lot of pears.”
