Sri Lankan minister emphasizes on enabling an environment for people to move out of poverty

A senior Sri Lankan minister says that an environment that could enable people to move out of poverty needed to be created. Senior Minister for International Monetary Co-operation Dr. Sarath Amunugama addressing a gathering in Colombo to launch the Sri Lanka National Human Development Report 2012 said
that attention needs to be paid to the growth in the middle class. Noting that most often every one tends to speak about poverty, the Minister said that attention needs to be paid to the people who are achievers and coming out of poverty instead of focusing on the diminishing numbers of people in the lowest levels of poverty. According to Dr. Amunugama, while looking at the bottom numbers for reasons ranging from economic to ethical, attention needs to be on creating an environment for people to move out of the poverty levels into the middle class. "If you are really interested in reducing these numbers, I think that we have to concentrate more on creating an enabling environment for people to climb out of poverty," Minister Amunugama said. -->