Towards a High Middle Income Sri Lanka: Recipe for Transition
Diversification of the export basket, a more effective communication strategy to build support for reform initiatives, and addressing the skills constraints of the labor force are the top priorities for Sri Lanka. This blog, based on the closing session of the Saman Kelegama Memorial Conference, discusses the stifling bottlenecks that Sri Lanka faces in its transition towards a high middle income country (HMIC) and how to overcome them.
Walk Before You Run: Defining the Scope of the ‘Single Window’ for Trade in Sri Lanka
Given the necessity to simplify trade procedures, Sri Lanka has identified the implementation of a Single Window (SW) for trade as a national priority and currently a blueprint is being developed. IPS researchers argue that more advanced SWs takes time, money, and effort. Thus, it requires a careful cost-benefit analysis, as well as managing expectations of all stakeholders, given the time frame for implementation, capabilities and resources available in Sri Lanka.
Trouble Brewing? How Sri Lanka’s Tea Industry Can Prepare for Future Challenges
Sri Lanka’s tea industry has survived for over 150 years. This interview with H. N. Thenuwara, an author for the forthcoming IPS publication ‘Sri Lanka Tea Industry in Transition – 150 years and Beyond’, examines the challenges and opportunities facing the tea industry of Sri Lanka and provides recommendations for the way forward.
FTA with Malaysia: Will it Lead to an Expansion in Flow of Trade and Investment with Sri Lanka?
With the Malaysia’s Prime Minister, Najib Razak’s visit to Sri Lanka, there has been a renewed interest in entering into a FTA with Malaysia. If such a FTA comes into fruition, how will it impact Sri Lanka’s trade? Preliminary estimates by IPS suggest that likely gains from bilateral trade liberalization in goods will be limited to few products, but there might be gains from other areas of cooperation, namely in investment flows to Sri Lanka.
Fuelling Sri Lanka’s Tourism Sector to Achieve SDGs
In Sri Lanka, the tourism sector boasts of a vast potential to reach economic growth targets. It can also help achieve all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As such, this blog discusses some of the ways in which tourism could make useful contributions towards reducing poverty and inequality, conserving the environment, improving water and sanitation, and promoting public-private partnerships.
Demystifying Hawala/Undiyal – The Not So Dismal Science:[…] believed that informal fund transfer operations in Sri Lanka have expanded considerably due to the wide gap between the…