A plan has been submitted by the Tourist Hotel Association of Sri Lanka (THASL) for the upcoming Budget where it states that the Government needs to support the industry for long-term debt restructuring which may help the industry finance their accumulated interest payments, says THASL President Sanath Ukwatte. He made this statement while speaking to the media yesterday (10). "The industry is expecting long-term support from the Government for a long-term restructuring by way of waiving the accumulated interest during the closure of our businesses and reprofiling the outstanding capital into a longer payment period with lower interest. We have submitted a plan and have proposed the Government to issue long-term government backed bonds in order to finance the accumulated interest portion of all tourism loans," said Ukwatte. He added that the bonds, together with the profiling of capital, would help to settle the outstanding debt sustainably. "The Government bonds can later be settled by the hotel industry at a nominal interest rate, and in that way the Government can also help strengthen the banking sector as well," he added. The next request made by Ukwatte was for a wage support scheme, which the Cabinet had approved last year, but has not been implemented as yet. "Hoteliers are struggling to pay wages of employees, and the industry is charged high utility rates compared to other industries, and these bills have not been settled due to the lack of cash flow. Now that we see signs of tourism bouncing back, we have appealed to the Government to give us an easy payment scheme spread over 3 years for the settlement of arrears of utility bills commencing January 2022," Ukwatte stated. Ukwatte also requested the Government for the SVAT scheme which was granted last year for exports, whereas the industry was not registered under the SVAT. He added that with this, exports could be done by the industry as it has a serious impact on the cash flow of the industry and would give a boost to the already suffering hotels. "We are confident that we can create more jobs and contribute to the industry to rejuvenate foreign currency earnings for the country and restore the livelihood of 3 million dependents," he mentioned. Meanwhile, it was added that the tourism sector contributes to around 10% of employment in Sri Lanka and 12% of the country's GDP, and the industry alone has made over 15 billion dollars of investment in the country, which in return has improved the lives of Sri Lankans living in rural communities and infused valuable foreign exchange to the national economy.