Becoming A Technologically Advanced Nation
Dr. W.A. Wijewardena
Three growth challenges facing Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka has to tackle three main challenges in its march toward prosperity.
First, it has to sustain a high economic growth rate unabated in the next two to three decades without allowing it to slip away once a high growth has been recorded as it has dropped during 2012 and 2013. Second, it has to elevate itself from the current lower middle income country to a higher middle income country by at least 2020, just within a seven year period. Third, from there onward, it has to become a rich nation within another generation or so and the foundation for reaching that goal has to be laid now itself.
Way forward: Becoming a high-tech country and relying on the private sector
All these are daunting challenges but not impossible to meet if Sri Lanka continues with two policy strategies and sticks to them resolutely. The first is that it has to convert its current simple economy to a complex economy by becoming a technologically advanced nation.
The second is that it has to integrate itself to the global economy having relied on the private enterprise and initiative jettisoning the wasteful and inefficient state expansion policy currently being ardently pursued.
The lukewarm signals from Budget 2014
In the Budget 2014, a passing reference has been made regarding the first with a few unrelated and uncoordinated suggestions to improve the country’s technological base marginally. With regard to the second, the Budget 2014 has reaffirmed its conviction to expand the State sector and no mention about its using the private initiatives to drive the growth momentum forward.
Message from Budget 2014: We are believers in the State and not in the private sector
