Colombo, Jul 20 (IANS): The Sri Lankan government has launched a five-year National Export Strategy (NES) to boost foreign investments, foreign exchange earnings and employment, the media reported on Friday.

Addressing the launch of the five-year NES strategy, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said the key objective of the NES was to increase the capacity of the local export sector, improve trade performance and competitiveness and ensure evolution of different sectors of the economy to grab a share of the global market and achieve the government's goal of $28 billion in export revenue by 2022.

Insisting that the NES was an important element in strengthening the economic growth of Sri Lanka, Wickremesinghe said that government officials would meet exporters every six months to discuss and monitor the implementation progress, Xinhua news agency reported.

"These are the policies we are following to ensure that the people in this country have better jobs, better incomes, better housing, better education and better healthcare," he said.

"You can't have all these without money and you can't have money if you don't earn your foreign exchange."

Wickremesinghe further emphasized that all the developed economies of Asia had become successful by becoming export economies, particularly South Korea, Singapore and Vietnam.

He highlighted the free trade agreement (FTA) signed between Sri Lanka and Singapore, and said the government was also seeking to deepen trade relations with other economies in the region, including China, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.