Economic summit to assess Lanka's export potential

The 14th annual Sri Lanka Economic Summit to be held from July 9-11 in Colombo will discuss Sri Lanka’s export strategy in one of its sessions.


Dr. Premachandra
Athukorala.

The Government policy framework has targeted to raise the rate of growth in exports to double that of GDP growth, but exports as a percentage of GDP in 2012 was half of what it was in 2000. The share of exports of Sri Lanka as a percentage of world exports has also declined over the years to reach 0.06% by 2011.

The basket of merchandise exports from Sri Lanka and our export markets have remained unchanged over the past few decades.

The foregoing situation and change in the global economic scenario, with Asia gaining ground over the West, require us to rethink our export strategy given the importance of exports to a small economy targeting to achieve sustained high economic growth in the future.

Leading economists and key exporters have been invited to discuss and identify changes required to current strategy to rejuvenate the exports sector in Sri Lanka.

The keynote speaker at this session will be Professor of Economics at the Australian National University and Honorary Professorial Research Fellow at the University of Manchester, UK, Dr. Premachandra Athukorala.

His research interests lie primarily in the fields of development macroeconomics, international trade and development, multinational enterprises and foreign direct investment and international labour migration.

At various times he has served as a consultant to the World Bank, ADB, ILO, UNDP, UNIDO, ESCAP and the Australian Agency for International Development.

These assignments have resulted in work in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Georgia, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Laos, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam.

Dr. Athukorala will be discussing export development strategies pursued by developing countries that have been successful and compare it with those being pursued by Sri Lanka and highlight the strengths and weaknesses in Sri Lanka’s policy framework and provide recommendations to move forward.

Executive Director of Policy Studies, Dr. Saman Kelegama will make a presentation on ‘Trade agreements as a tool to access Markets’ followed by a panel discussion consisting of Secretary General, Tea Exporters Association, Niraj de Mel, CEO-hSenid Software International, Dinesh Saparamadu, Secretary General, Joint Apparel Association Forum, Tuli Cooray, Senior Economist and Strategic Business Development, Hayleys, Deshal de Mel.

The session will be chaired by Past Chairman of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, Dr. Anura Ekanayake.

The Sri Lanka Economic Summit 2013 is the ultimate platform to gain a comprehensive understanding of the county’s economy, the investment climate and diverse opportunities available for investors and businessmen.

A large number of participants are expected from the private and public sectors, local and overseas.



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