Category: Watch Tower
‘s ageing population poses socio-economic challenges
By Zahran Sikkanther Lebbe Sri Lanka’s rapidly ageing population poses serious challenges on several fronts. Selected socio-economic challenges of this demographic transition are highlighted here calling attention of policy makers to implement fruitful interventions to preserve the rights of the elderly and to ensure their financial stability, social security and easy access to healthcare. Statistics […]
Internet of Things: Insurance companies could unlock powerful growth
By Mithula Guganeshan The new tech buzz word, Internet of Things, is all about connecting data, people, machines and processes using sensors attached to devices. Despite IoT being in its early stages, it has been predicted that IoT would become universal in a decade or so. Gartner, Inc. forecasts that 5.5 million new things will […]
Opinion: Can waste power the nation? Exploring a sustainable green solution
By J. Lorenz March 24, 2016 (LBO) – Two common developing country problems are pollution and lack of power and power resources. As Sri Lankans we have learned to turn a blind eye to garbage dump sites. Although there has been a definite improvement from twenty years back, we still do come across a lot […]
Opinion: Sri Lankan apparel, seeking market access through trade deals
By Subhashini Abeysinghe Apparel is the single most important export of Sri Lanka. With export earnings of US$ 4.7 billion, apparel accounted for 42% of total exports of the country in 2014. The sector faces several challenges in the international market. Erosion of cost competitiveness due to higher costs and a shortage of labour at […]
Blog: Social media marketing, the basic mistakes
By Dinesh Jebamani Today we need to innovate in the way we want to communicate and interact with our community who we consider as customers, prospects or target groups. The ever evolving communication landscape and continuous new mediums emerging in Digital media which are adopted fast by the public leaves us with no choice but […]
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 […]