Athukorala who has served under two presidents– the Bandaranayake & President Rajapakse in the key policy making body the National Council For Economic Development(NCED) as the Executive Director when the country achieved a economic growth of 7%+ said as a country failed to capitalize on the strong IT/BPO boom that India enjoyed in the last 5-7 years and it was not late that it could be done even now together with the private sector. He went on to commended the efforts of the government in the reconstruction and development efforts of the North in the last 3 months where the focus has been on key infrastructure development such as roads, Electricity and water systems.

The speaker said that the next challenge is to involve the community in the development process just like the 50 million euro community based livelihood project is been done by United Nations Operations(UNOPS) where the people in the area get involved in building rural access roads as well as waste management projects which are self financing. On a daily basis in the Ampara district where there are almost 2000 people in the community that work on a daily basis which has helped revive the economy and generate consumer pull towards private sector brands.

Another point highlighted by the speaker was the Private-Public-People (PPP model) that needs to be driven in making a economic change to the market dynamics seen in western markets. The case explained by Athukorala was the Apparel Industry of Sri Lanka where even with the key markets of EU and US declining the Sri Lankan private sector went through internal reforms by way of restructuring the business and looking out at new partnerships that has helped the overall industry deliver a sales revenue of 2 billion dollars as at end August 2009 just about last years performance. This performance is commendable and the public sector must follow suit as a best practice said Athukorala.

The other speakers at the event was The Minister for National Integration Muralitharan better known as Karuna Amman, The Governor of the Northern Province Major General Chandrasiri, The Deputy Governor Central Bank Dr. Weerasinghe and the Chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce Tissa Jayaweera.