Sep 18, 2019 (LBO) – The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday launched the working draft of the 2020 - 25 Economic Acceleration Framework at the Sri Lanka Economic Summit.
Sri Lanka is currently at a pivotal juncture where the country’s economic, social, and political trajectory is concerned.
The framework is a collective aspiration and action plan, which will guide Sri Lanka’s economy from an 89 billion dollars economy (2018) to a 134 billion dollars economy within a five year period.
For this to vision to be a reality, their expectation is for GDP to steadily rise from the current 3 percent levels to 5 - 6 percent in the next few years.
With this stronger base, they anticipate growth to then take off to 7 - 8 percent levels by 2025.
The growth is expected to be driven via sectors such as exports (merchandise goods and services), tourism and transportation and logistics amongst others.
The Framework was introduced by Dr.
Hans Wijayasuriya during the title keynote session of the Sri Lanka Economic Summit, which focused on re-calibrating Sri Lanka’s economic trajectory.
This can be done; he elaborated, by consolidating and pivoting on fundamental strengths, including fiscal discipline, macro stability, per capita GDP, global competitiveness index and global market access.
Sri Lanka’s strategic location, international relations, quality of life, human development index, global flagships, freedoms, and the country’s resilience should also be considered.
This would require a focus on balanced sectoral growth, and establishing growth enablers and accelerators, covering digitization, education, SME acceleration, energy, and more.
“We need to recognize, that when we talk about recalibration, we live in exponential times.
Recalibration would need to be done on a very regular basis – and planning will never be static, it needs to be multidimensional,” he said.
A holistic framework for inclusive economic acceleration would also require good governance, an installation of meritocracy, transparency, and elimination of corruption.
“We are at a very important juncture at the social, political, and economic juncture.
The economic growth of our country has to be addressed in the social-political backdrop.”
The working draft of the Ceylon Chamber’s Economic Acceleration report is now available online, and can be found at seaf.chamber.lk and feedback is welcomed.
