Category: Opinion
Opinion: Five major economic risks to watch for this year
By Shang-Jin Wei Developing Asia is poised to grow at 6 percent this year, a slight uptick from the 5.8 percent figure in 2015, but looking ahead, five major economic risks loomon the horizon and the impact of each will be different across countries. The first is the future path of interest rates in the […]
Opinion: Central Bank’s clarification on EPF has unwittingly refuted PM and Minister of Finance?
By W.A. Wijewardena The Central Bank has issued a clarification on the Monetary Board’s alleged failure to publish the annual reports of the EPF after 2012, a concern raised by this writer in a previous article. This alleged failure has been only one of the concerns raised in the article among many failures of the […]
Opinion: Time to adapt to three inconvenient investment truths
By Steve Brice Global markets have had a rather rocky start to the year, to put it mildly. An indicator of global stocks has fallen 19 per cent from their record highs in May 2015 amid a broad-based sell-off in risk assets. An indicator of Emerging Markets stocks is down 35 per cent from last […]
‘s Rebirth, blog by Joseph E Stiglitz
By Joseph E. Stiglitz COLOMBO – Sri Lanka has been deservedly praised for the progress it has made since the end of the war against the separatist Tamil Tigers in 2009. The economy has grown at an average annual rate of 6.7%, and education and health statistics are impressive. All developing countries face myriad challenges, […]
Opinion: Rite of passage, boom and bust cycle of the economy
By Ashini Samarasinghe Where economic performance is concerned, Sri Lanka tends to emphasize on the importance of economic growth or GDP growth over other economic indicators. This has led to expectations of consistently higher growth rates over time. However, we have not as yet been able to maintain high growth rates over a long period […]
Opinion: Sri Lanka opens the door to economic reform
By Dushni Weerakoon, Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka The direction of Sri Lanka’s post-civil war socio-political and economic development took a pivotal turn in 2015 with the election of a new president in January and, seven months later, a new government to parliament. In the absence of an overall parliamentary majority for any […]
Opinion: 2016 – adapt to a changing landscape
By Steve Brice, Chief Investment Strategist, Standard Chartered 2015 was an incredibly challenging year for investors with equities, bonds and commodities in most areas seeing negative returns and heightened volatility. 2016 is expected to be just as difficult. Adapting to the changing environment will be vital, but overall we expect global equity markets to generate […]
Opinion: Keeping to agenda for change is key, says Jehan Perera
By Jehan Perera The role that civil society played in the change of government that occurred in January at the presidential elections, and which was reaffirmed at the general elections of August, was celebrated at two events held last week. One was on World Anti Corruption Day which fell on December 9. This event was […]
Op-Ed on Sri Lanka Budget – Is Sri Lanka’s Fiscal House in Order?
(Todd Schneider is the head of IMF’s staff missions to Sri Lanka) By Todd Schneider Constructing a good budget is like building a good house. The foundation needs to be solid, high-quality materials make a big difference to durability, and careful craftsmanship will bring both stability and confidence to weather future storms. Similarly, budgets needed […]
Australia to transfer refugees from Nauru to Cambodia
Apr 17, 2015 (LBO) – A charter flight will carry the first group of asylum seekers from Nauru to Cambodia next Monday, under an agreement entered into between Australia and Cambodia, Media reports said.Whether Sri Lankans are among the first group of refugees who will be transferred from Nauru to Cambodia is not known yet, […]
Visa On Arrival? Not really
Apr 16, 2015 (LBO) – There is much enthusiasm about the “visa on arrival” facility India has offered to the Sri Lankan traveler.“Visa-on-arrival” usually means you show a blank page of your passport to the Immigration officer to stamp the visa, but this will not be the case for Sri Lankans arriving on Indian shores […]
Sri Lanka Central Bank, retrospect 1950 to 2010
Sept 27, 2010 (LBO) – In the modern era, the best recorders of history, as and when the important events occur, are the newspapers. But it is seldom that one attempts at unearthing history by tapping this source. Perhaps the enormous labour which one has to shed in perusing voluminous newspaper articles and the time […]