Speaking at Sri Lanka Insurance Cooperation’s Silver Jubilee, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has voiced his defiance against economic conspiracies to topple his ‘progressive’ government.

Recalling challenges faced by the government in nationalising the Insurance Cooperation, the President urged employees of government managed corporations to show more commitment to improving profitability.

"People will approve our decisions when these institutions are managed profitably," he is reported to have said.

Rajapaksa further said that protecting national companies was much more challenging than selling them off to the private sector, and that ‘local and international conspirators were in operation to destroy these progressive governments and leaders’ that did try to protect them.

He also claimed that development works in the country were not simply planned to keep the government in power.