Sri Lanka earned Rs. 382 Billion from Foreign Employment last year.

The remittances received last year from Sri Lankan expatriates topped country’s foreign exchange earnings and amounted to Rs. 382 Billion. The Minister of Youth Affairs Mr. Dallas Alahapperuma has said that measures will be taken to double this amount and increase it to Rs. 764 Billion this year. Addressing a function held in Colombo in connection with handing over of appointment letters to 25 lecturers selected for Technical Colleges which conduct grade 5 and 6 Technical Diploma Courses, and covers the
9 provinces in the country, the Minister said that most of the Sri Lankans employed overseas are in Middle East countries in vocations such as housemaid and housekeeping services which provide less salaries.  Only 25.5% of the overseas employed at present are working
as skilled employees.

Under-skilled employees account for 2.6%.  This 72% of overseas employed working in unskilled categories.  The Minister said that every effort will be made to increase the skilled overseas employed persons to 50%, which could easily increase the amount of remittances to Rs. 764 billion.  He said that this could be achieved by improving  the capacity of technical education which is not an unachievable task. (niz).