Sri Lanka should adopt long term polices, if it was to develop economically and also regain its lost status and prestige, UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe said yesterday.

He was speaking at a news conference in Colombo to announce the launch of his book Anagatha Abiyogaya, (The future challenge), which outlines a 25-year policy plan that includes a clean political system, an executive Prime Minister and a President who will safeguard the Constitution.

"At the time Sri Lanka, then called Ceylon gained independence, it was one of the leading States in Asia and only second to Japan. We need to regain that lost status and prestige." The country’s policies should have as its cornerstones, the Buddha’s discourse ‘Bahujan Hithaya, Bahujan Sukaya’,he added. (ZJ)