18th August 2018 14:45:25 Hours
The short answer is “No”. It is not in crisis but, it is a fragile economy and it requires discipline and farsighted Economic Management to make sure that it remains out of crisis and that in fact has achieved sustained growth and development. Now the rospects of achieving sustained growth and development is actually very good and probably the best set of circumstances that country has faced for the last 50-60 years. But there are challenges and those challenges are to be addressed so that those favourable circumstances could be taken as advantages. However there is fragility in the Economy and need to be diligent in terms of making over policies in a pragmatic and professional way.
Above remarks were made by Dr. Indrajit Coomaraswamy,in his lecture delivered on 17th August 2018 at Regimental Officers’ Mess of Sri Lanka Corps of Military Police at Polhengoda. He further explained as to why this is the best set of circumstances for last 50 to 60 years. From the late 1950 onwards Sri Lankan economy experienced sustain decline in main export crops of tea, rubber and coconut. The prices of those three crops fell on a sustain basis. The commodity prices fell from the late 50 on to about early 1980 in a quite dramatic way. At 1982 edition of the World Banks flagship Annual ublication, Sri Lanka was sighted as a classic example of a country that has been buffeted by severe terms of trade decline.
At the time of having this trade decline, there was a demographic search where it was ascertained that the population of Sri Lanka was increasing rapidly in some years by 3%. So surpluses in the economy were coming down because of the trade decline and with the rapid increase in the number of mouths to feed, educated and find employment for.
Those were the major drags on the economic prospects of the country. Terms of trade decline, demographic search, and closed economic policies were not really appropriate for a country with our economic characteristics. Even though the economy was liberalised in 1977, the full gains of liberalisation were not achieved because of 27 years of conflict which clearly placed the high risk premium of the economy and was another major drag on the development of the country.Now of course the peace prevails and no major drags in the economy such as terms of trade decline, demographic search, inappropriate policies and the conflict, according to Dr Coomaraswamy.
This lecture was organised by ARFRO. Many members of ARFRO along with officers from Tri - Services including students from KDU, totalling approximately 135 participants, were benefited by the lecture.
Rear Admiral Sarath Rathnakeerthi (rtd), President of ARFRO was instrumental in organizing this lecture
