New plan crafted to take Sri Lanka exports to the next level
A plan has been mapped out for the country for the next five years to plug Sri Lanka into the world.
“There has been a consistency in my policy of promoting exports during the past five years. I have always stressed on exports and we have to concentrate on exports,” said the Deputy Minister for Policy Planning Dr. Harsha De Silva who was the Chief Guest at the 18th Annual General Meeting of the Exporters Association of Sri Lanka in Colombo this week.
The Deputy Minister then took the bull by its horns when he quizzed the Chairman of the Export Development Board (EDB) (present at the event) who had bragged about generating US$50 billion export business by the year 2020.
The deputy minister asked him how that can be translated in terms of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). He said the percentage of exports have been coming down continuously after it dropped to 34 per cent in 2000. “That was due to lack of focus and vision. But how can the figure go up to $50 billion from $20 billion as stated before,” he asked the EDB Chairman. “I can understand the figure going up from $20 to $25. But I cannot figure out how it can reach $50 billion,” he quipped.
Referring to the former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s flawed policy on exports, he said that focus on exports was not quite appropriate. “I have had a number of arguments with the former Governor of the Central Bank and the former Secretary to the Treasury. Their perception on road building and other infrastructure development alone was not paying sufficient attention to exports. Their thinking was wrong,” he said. “We must understand that there is no future for us without exports. If people cannot understand such logic they should go away and give to someone else,” he said. The Deputy Minister said the manifesto outlined by his party states clearly that Sri Lanka should become a leading hub in this part of the region. “We are looking at Sri Lanka as a dynamic player in the global arena. So the game ought to change.”
He said the export earnings of $10 billion were hardly sufficient in comparison to $7 billion remittances sent by Sri Lankan expatriate workers. “But it was a sad story when our mothers and sisters are tortured and killed sometimes.” The Deputy Minister welcomed officials from the Exporters Association to part of the team in formulating policy export matters. “Exports should be 100 per cent of the GDP. In Hong Kong it is about 300 per cent of the GDP,” he said.
Incoming Chairman of the Exporters Association of Sri Lanka, Fazal Mushin said while emphasis has been paid to infrastructural development, it has not paved the way to create a conducive environment in which the export sector could have grown. He said although many initiatives were meant to encourage investment and make Sri Lanka a manufacturing hub, what was lacking was a conducive environment in which exports could thrive be it local companies or foreign investors. He asked how countries such as Dubai (UAE), Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia were able to attract investment and not Sri Lanka. How did they establish stable political and business climate to encourage and facilitate business activity, he asked. Noting that this is something “we need to look at”, he said, “What we need is to have a stable political environment in which exporters voices would heard. We must be made partners in shaping and developing policy in which we can conduct our business”.