Lanka in discussion with ADB for SME venture capital fund: official

ECONOMYNEXT - Sri Lankan authorities are in discussion with the Asian Development Bank to establish a venture capital fund to grant cheap finance access for the island nation’s small and medium sector enterprises (SME), a top official said.

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Manjula Hettiarachchi, Director General of the Department of Development Finance at the country’s Ministry of Finance said, if the discussions succeed, the country will have a venture capital fund from the next year.

“Access to the finance for the SME sector has been a real issue with some commercial banks also hesitant to provide loans. We at the Finance Ministry have developed some schemes for those SMEs and we want them to access,” Hettiarachchi said during a discussion on Wednesday (08).