Sri Lanka’s future depends on how the country can leverage the maritime opportunities in front of it, said Dr Harsha De Silva, Deputy Minister of National Policy and Economic Affairs on Friday in Colombo addressing the Post Business Session of the 47th Annual General Meeting of Sri Lanka Shippers’ Council .
The minister said he did not consider Sri Lanka as a South Asian Nation but an Indian Ocean Nation.
“We are an ocean nation. Our history tells that every time we were prosperous we had leveraged maritime opportunities. And it is going to be the same in the future.
The near future is pregnant with hope and the Indian Ocean will be the ocean that creates wealth and we are the centre of the Indian Ocean. We will become the hub of the Indian Ocean,” he said.
The minister said that the government has a vision and that vision could be achieved by working hand in glove with the private sector. Looking from a historic context Sri Lanka was a trading nation leveraging the maritime resources and opportunities available to it, he said.
Commerce cannot happen because people want to do trade.
For commerce to happen there must be that conducive environment. Citing Qatar’s issue with its neighbours as an example, he said
The government rebuilt all the damaged bridges in the past one and half years and maintains an excellent relationship with the rest of the world.
“So it is essential for Sri Lanka if we are going to leverage the Indian Ocean take an initiative in giving leadership to creating that order in the Indian Ocean.
That is why the Prime Minister has been quite bold in offering Sri Lanka’s help to attempt to create an Indian Ocean order that gives freedom of navigation and freedom of overflying.
“Exports to GDP of a country like Hong Kong are roughly 250%. In Singapore exports to GDB is 150%.Sri Lanka it was about 35% 10 years ago. Unfortunately it has fallen to under 14% two years ago. When this government came to office what was 34% 10 years ago had fallen to 14 %.
The root cause is that we have ignored our comparative advantage. The government’s primary objective now is to figure out how to make that U turn.
We have not been successful in the last two years and exports have kept falling. We need a structural shift in our policy and we have to change our economic game plan,” the minister said.
Dr De Silva said Vietnam had US$ 20 billion of FDIs in 2016. Myanmar had US$ 10 billion. But Sri Lanka had less than half a billion dollars in FDIs in 2016. “What happen Export Development Board? What happen BOI? the minister questioned.
There is no way we are going to succeed if we continue to make these marginal differences. It won’t happen. We have to change,” the minister cautioned.
The challenge the country faces was to convert a buyer driven network to a production driven network, he said.
Scoffing at trade agreement critics Dr De Silva said Singapore has entered into16 trade agreements. The minister questioned whether GSP plus was good or bad? The GSP should be used as a stepping stone to carve out, develop and design a free trade agreement with Europe.
He said further steps needed to be taken to convert the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) that the country has with America into a free trade agreement with the US and get access to those markets.
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