Finance and Media Minister Mangala Samaraweera presented to Cabinet a proposal to prepare the 2018 budget based on performance and to determine the budget limit for line ministries considering the priority programme of the government.

The proposal, which won the approval of the Cabinet, aims to gain the following targets in 2020: Increase public income from 16. 5% of the GDP, set recurrent expenditure at 14.8% of the GDP, public investment at 5.3% of the GDP and reduce budget deficit to 3.5% of the GDP.

Additionally, the ‘Macro-Public Finance Framework 2018-2020 intends to reduce public debt to 70% of the GDP.