Category Archives: export issues

A Critical Assessment of the Sri Lankan Government’s Budget

   Chandrasena Maliyadde, in DailyFT, 21 December 2021 …. where the title is ” The Budget: As I See it” &&&

The Budget is a mirror effect of the inconsiste  …ncy, incoherence and confusion prevailing at different levels of the Government The second Budget of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s Government was presented on 12 November by his younger brother Basil Rajapaksa. Cheerleaders and image builders claim the Budget is extraordinarily beneficial and presented by a Minister exceptionally clever. Hence, one has to think twice before commenting on it. 

 

 

 

 

 

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VERITE in Concise Review of Public Finance in Recent Past

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

As we approach the end of the year, there is much to look back on and reflect upon. I am glad to share with you some of the highlights of the recent month in this Verité Bulletin.

We have long felt that democracy is not meaningful when citizens are not critically cognizant of the information in relation to public finance. This is why Verité Research strategically expanded its work on Public Finance. The platform that we built, PublicFinance.lk, is probably the pre-eminent locus for information and analysis on the state of Sri Lanka’s public finance.

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Ways of Regenerating Sri Lanka’s Economy: An Integrated Kick-Start Scheme

    Anton Balasuriya

Abstract: This paper details the concept of economic development to jump start the rural economy and alleviate poverty beyond COVID 19.The strategy is to combine the presently available infrastructure and administrative facilities and bring a new dimension of human motivation factors, as well as, to adding new resources to strength the weak areas and those that are non-existent presently.

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A Momentous Issue: The Hambantota Port Project under Scrutiny in Thuppahi

Thuppahi is pleased to mark its intense interest in the Hambantota Port Project by listing its recent entries from a wide spectrum of authors located in Australia, England, USA and Sri Lanka. The bibliographies within these essays will also serve up further material.

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Hambantota Port inks in New Prospects

NEWS ITEM ….http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/asiapacific/2021-08/10/c_1310119624.htm

Sri Lanka’s Hambantota International Port (HIP) signed a 58-million-U.S. dollar deal with Maldivian company Sea Horse Yachts on Monday to assemble and export yachts from HIP’s industrial park.

Mr Jayampathy, Secy, Ministry of Ports i signing the document, with Parakrama Dissanayake seated on his right

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Pointers from Singapore towards the Appraisal of the Hambantota Port Scheme

Fair Dinkum

When Sir Stamford Raffles arrived in Singapore in 1819, the British set about creating the Port of Singapore. In time, with much hard work, the port became successful. In the 1960s, the Singapore government set about further expansions of its ports along the south of the island, with five additional gateways operating by the 1990s. It is now one of the biggest and busiest collection of ports in the world. Having visited these ports over the years, the scale of operations is extraordinary. The success of Singapore Ports was built up over time. It didn’t come easily or immediately. The same with the Piraeus Port in Greece, although it became successful and profitable quickly.

  Hambantota — a Pix and a Sketch

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No Debt Trap at Hambantota: False Picture on China’s Role

Deborah Brautigam & Meg Rithmire,  in The Atlantic, 6 February 2021, where the title is The Chinese ‘Debt Trap’ Is a Myth “

The narrative wrongfully portrays both Beijing and the developing countries it deals with. China, we are told, inveigles poorer countries into taking out loan after loan to build expensive infrastructure that they can’t afford and that will yield few benefits, all with the end goal of Beijing eventually taking control of these assets from its struggling borrowers. As states around the world pile on debt to combat the coronavirus pandemic and bolster flagging economies, fears of such possible seizures have only amplified.

Ben Shmulevitch

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The Story behind the Rise of Hambantota Port: An American Twist

Jonathan E. Hillman, 26 August 2021, whose title runs thus:The Secret History of Hambantota” ….  while the presentation here is marked by the imposition of highlights, let me prefigure the prospect of critical commentary from knowledgeable specialists sought out by Thuppahi.

If Chinese loans were cigarettes, Sri Lanka’s Hambantota Port would be the cancerous lung on the warning label. Some observers have pointed to the underperforming port and alleged that China is using “debt trap diplomacy,” loading countries up with loans and seizing strategic assets after they cannot repay. Others have argued that Sri Lanka, not China, is responsible for its debt woes. The debate is important for understanding the risks lurking in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, especially as the pandemic pushes more of China’s borrowers to the brink.

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An Appraisal of Sri Lanka’s Industrialization Strategy  

Prema-chandra Athukorala

The history of industrialization strategy in Sri Lanka is characterized by abrupt episodes of substantial changes associated with political regime shifts without settling to a stable path required for self-sustained growth.  During the first decade after independence in 1948, development of industry was not a policy priority in Sri Lanka, unlike in many other newly independent nations. From about the late 1950s, a combination of the influence of the development thinking at the time and growing balance-of-payments problems induced a policy shift towards state-led import-substitution industrialization. In 1977 Sri Lanka embarked on an extensive economic liberalization reforms process that marked a decisive break with a two decades of state-led import-substitution industrialization strategy.

a garment factory … and tyre production

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Port Cities of Asia surveyed by Frank Broeeze et al in 1989

Frank Broeze from the University of Western Australia organised a wide-ranging study of port cities in Asia which should not be neglected in exploring the background bearing upon the ongoing politico-economic manoeuvres in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific today.

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