Sri Lanka needs to get into an economic policy capsule with participation from politicians, bureaucrats, academia, and civil society organizations, to map out strategy for developing the talent pool of the country needed by 2025, 2035 and 2045, former Central Bank Deputy Governor W.A. Wijewardena said.
He was speaking at the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transportation (CILT) Sri Lanka Logistics Leaders Evening, held recently, with a lecture titled ‘Sri Lanka’s Competitiveness – A Tiger or a Small Miracle’.
According to Wijewardena, it is necessary to sign off the strategy with time-bound key performance indicators (KPIs) to monitor progress, rectify deviations and plan out for emerging developments.
“It is neither Tiger nor Small Miracle for Sri Lanka unless a massive reform program is implemented with consistency, consensus, dedication and commitment,” he said.
“Despite government projections of 7% minimum growth, it is only likely that Sri Lanka will achieve somewhere between 5%-5.5% growth rate till 2020 with the current state of affairs.”
He highlighted the example of Singapore’s forward-thinking mindset that allowed a small state to become a global economic powerhouse.
“A deeper evaluation of the current situation revealed that the biggest reason why Sri Lanka is lagging behind is a need to change our cultural mindset to be more modern and hardworking, to rethink how education is delivered and to leapfrog four cycles of the industrial revolution in order to become relevant,” he said.
Commenting on economic reforms on a wide scale, he pointed out the need to make the private sector move the country forward, introduce measures to improve productivity and efficiency of using both human and physical capital and create a bigger market for Sri Lankan products to move out of the current ‘middle-income trap’ towards becoming a high-income nation. (IH)
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