Here are some fast facts about Sri Lanka’s trade relationship with the UK as it stands today: Sri Lanka’s exports to UK have been stagnating for about a decade now – at around the US$ 1.1 billion level. UK is one-tenth of our total exports – but lower than when we had under GSP Plus (was … Continue reading Brexit and ...
The Sri Lanka Economic Summit produced many incisive insights, revealing research, but most of all some memorable and thought-provoking quotes. Here are 19 of my favourites. 1. “The unprecedented concessions granted to favoured enterprises by the previous government have created a nightmare for the present government” – Hon. Ravi Karunanayake, Minister of Finance 2. “Professional advice needs to mix […] ...
Sinhala language current affairs website, යුක්තිය (‘Yukthiya’) asked for my thoughts on trade liberalisation, particularly in the current context of the ETCA. Here’s what I said: ලංකා වාණිජ මණ්ඩලයේ ප‍්‍රධාන ආර්ථික විද්‍යාඥ අනුෂ්ක විජේසිංහ මහතා කියන්නේ ඉන්දියාව සමග මෙන්ම වෙනත් රටවල් සමගද අන්‍යොන්‍ය වාසිදායක වන වෙළෙඳ ගිවිසුම්වලට ඇතුළත්වීම අවශ්‍ය බවයි. අපේ නිෂ්පාදන ජාත්‍යන්තර තලයට ගෙන යා හැක්කේ […] ...
My first experience with AirBnB was on a trip to Europe last year - couldn't have afforded France if not for it, and got insider tips, driving cheats, and great eats because of it. A year later, it was great to catch up with a top AirBnB official and chat about the platform.
My first experience with AirBnB was on a trip to Europe last year – couldn’t have afforded France if not for it, and got insider tips, driving cheats, and great eats because of it. A year later, it was great to catch up with a top AirBnB official and chat about the platform. Mike Orgill, head of […]
The government recently imposed an Annual Registration Fee on Private Limited Companies of LKR 60,000 and a LKR 250,000 closing down fee, both of which were announced in Budget 2016 and came in to effect last month. I find these new fees deeply problematic, for many reasons: The fee affects all private limited firms regardless of their size […]
This is Part 2 of a recent interview I gave to a Sinhala language current affairs website, යුක්තිය (‘Yukthiya’). It is originally published here http://yukthiya.lk/3577-2/ පසුගිය කොටයේ අවසානයෙන් සාකච්ඡාව ආරම්භ කරන්නේ නම් උදාහරණයක් ලෙස මගේ මිතුරෙක් මොබයිල් පේමන්ට් ඇප් එකක් සංවර්ධනය කළේ ය. ලංකාවේ මහ බැංකුවේ දැනට තිබෙන නීති රිති නිසා ඒ ආයතනය අපේ රටේ පිහිටුවන්නට අපහසු […] ...
I recently gave an interview on Sri Lanka’s continuing tax troubles, and the impact on the economy, to a Sinhala language current affairs website, යුක්තිය (‘Yukthiya’). I reproduce it in full here (Part 1), with due credit to where it is originally published here – http://yukthiya.lk/ද-දේ-නි-ප්%E2%80%8Dරතිශතයක්-ලෙස-කි/ අප රටේ බදු වැඩි කිරීම පිළිබඳව අප සමාජයේ සාකච්ඡාවක් ඇත. බොහෝ […] ...
After my recent post setting out the possible channels of impact of Brexit for the Sri Lankan economy, I had some really excellent and insightful comments from readers who wrote back to me. I thought of sharing some of them here. (If you need a quick ‘get me smart’ guide to the Brexit and what happened, this post […]
On Friday (24 June), as the Brexit fallout ensued, several media houses requested for remarks on the possible channels of impact for Sri Lanka’s economy. To help generate wider awareness, I am sharing these here. Remarks in Sinhala to Ada Derana news channel Remarks in English to News1stFiled under: Uncategorized
I recently gave an interview on Sri Lanka’s continuing tax troubles, and the impact on the economy, to a Sinhala language current affairs website, යුක්තිය (‘Yukthiya’). I reproduce it in full here (Part 1), with due credit to where it is originally published here – http://yukthiya.lk/ද-දේ-නි-ප්%E2%80%8Dරතිශතයක්-ලෙස-කි/ අප රටේ බදු වැඩි කිරීම පිළිබඳව අප සමාජයේ සාකච්ඡාවක් ඇත. බොහෝ […] ...
I type this as BBC just forecasts that Britain votes to Leave the EU, with almost 2/3rds of British EU referendum results now in. Here are some of the early impacts in global markets: The GBP has collapsed to levels not seen since the financial crash of 2009. Currency markets are seeing sharp volatility. At […]
It’s not often that we in Sri Lanka reflect on the role of the private sector in international development. At a recent seminar that I was speaking at, I was pushed to think about this in a way that made sense to an international audience. It was the seminar on ‘Advancing Good Governance in International Development’ […]
This article originally appeared in the Sunday Observer of Sunday 19th June — I could clearly see the transformation of London; returning after seven years, the evidence was everywhere. High-rise high-end apartment buildings dotting a new Docklands skyline; construction cranes across Zone 1 peering over the old city and shaping a new one; a new […]
It’s not often that we in Sri Lanka reflect on the role of the private sector in international development. At a recent seminar that I was speaking at, I was pushed to think about this in a way that made sense to an international audience. It was the seminar on ‘Advancing Good Governance in International Development’ […]
ChariTea, a tea infused lemonade drink, served to us at a meeting at Social Impact Lab, Berlin. Even for a tea purist like me, this was deliciously refreshing. How can srilanka break out of the commodity price sensitive low value added tea rut and in to the rapidly growing flavoured tea and tea-mixed beverage market […]
They call themselves ‘The Berlin Consulting Dudes’, and they are making waves in how German businesses engage with people in the process of innovation. The focus of this Berlin-based startup, Intraprenör, is on helping companies do ‘human-centred innovation’.I was fortunate to catch up with one of the company’s co-founders, Gregor Kalchthaler. He says they have found […] ...
The issue of constrained access to finance for SMEs continues to plague our small business sector, and it is often blamed on the narrow approach to SME lending by banks. The lack of cashflow-based lending, the heavy focus on high collateral requirements, inability to assess risk in SMEs, are the usual suspects. These are all […]
For some innovation eco-system work I have been doing, I came across some startling numbers that give us a sense of the narrow pool of researchers in science and engineering subjects. According to data available on the new Sri Lanka Innovation Dashboard, an initiative by COSTI, University of Moratuwa leads the way as the leading […]
In the course of some innovation policy work that I’ve been doing over the past year, I’ve noticed that the public policy conversations around innovation are dominated by a focus on knowledge creation, so stuff like R&D spend, putting money into government labs, research institutes, etc. There is much less focus on the interactions between knowledge creators and industry actors/entrepreneurs. […] ...