Sri Lanka welcomed its 950000th tourist arrival for 2012. Image courtesy http://www.sundayobserver.lk Two days ago Sri Lanka welcomed its 950,000th tourist for the year 2012, a Polish graphic designer. According to tourism officials, this means the country met the annual target set for 2012. These officials have also been quick to draw a comparison between the Maldives and Sri Lanka. ...
I gave up my Blackberry Curve over a year and a half ago, with much reluctance. But it had to be done. Blackberry as a device as we know it maybe history. But as a company? Maybe not. Even though we haven’t seen it shatteringly evident in its new phones, Blackberry’s innovative capacity is it’s biggest asset. Handset sales of ...
Notorious for poor service quality in our hotels and restaurants, Sri Lanka can also be classified under the countries with the most over-staffed retail and service establishments. More often than not you can spot waiters idling around, chatting with each other, and a waiter-to-customer or sales assistant-to-customer ratio of 3 to 1 or worse. I spotted a classic example today ...
While researching on the new trends in industrial policy for some writing on the role played by the state in Asian growth and what lessons Sri Lanka can draw from it for its own efforts, I came across this cracker of a line that captures the challenge nicely, “Focus now should be not on policy […]
Sri Lanka’s electricity sector is in perpetual crisis – either a malfunctioning coal power plant built with costly funding, or severe contractions in hydropower generation. Despite all this, electricity supply to people and businesses has by and large been steady and predictable, unlike, say, 15 years ago. (of course bearing in mind the random blackouts and […]
It’s been a while since my last podcast, over 2 months ago. In this 2nd podcast, I share some reflections from recent visits to Jaffna, Vavuniya and other parts of the Northern Province. More needs to be done to support entrepreneurship in the North. I feel that years of donor interventions may have hurt entrepreneurship here. Successive […]
May Day (or Labour Day) each year always fuels conversations around wages, cost of living, working conditions, etc. On wages, the discussions on minimum wages often come up. Interestingly, the government has just announced that it plans to introduce a National Minimum Wage (NMW) soon. This is a contentious issue, with profound implications for labour […]
I was recently invited to be a Guest Speaker at the Annual General Meeting of the Association of International Schools in Sri Lanka to address a group of principals, teachers, and school administrators from across the country. I reproduce it here because I think it can be of broader interest, especially with many often talking about ‘Sri Lanka as ...
This article was written to coincide with the visit of the UNIDO Director General Li Yong to Sri Lanka, and originally appears in the DailyFT of 5th February 2015 Key Points: Visit of UNIDO Director General offers opportunity to push ‘ISID’ approach, focussing on ‘inclusivity’ and ‘sustainability’ Coherent and holistic policy framework needed 95% of […]
In what can only be described as a bizarre turn of events, a recent article on the blogs section of The Economist website went missing for about 4 days. No – not just inaccessible in Sri Lanka – but completely missing. The article in question was in the blogs section of The Economist website – the ‘Gulliver’ column – and ...
Mumbai opened an impressive new airport terminal two weeks ago and I had a chance to sample it just a day after it opened. An otherwise exhausting 9 hour layover there was made rather pleasant thanks to the brightly-lit terminal, colourful and comfortable chairs, and decent shopping (although many of the shops are yet to open). The new terminal ...
As the Chinese economy continues to disprove it’s critics and grow at a steady pace with a greater focus towards domestic consumption, the Chinese consumer is doing exactly as expected and spending a lot more than before. A most notable consumer segment to have emerged is the luxury goods consumers. I just saw a report in […]
I found some interesting articles in the days following my article last week on tax reform, related to taxation/revenue/fiscal issues. It’s always encouraging to see more opinion pieces as well as news articles on tax. It’s especially encouraging to see journey covering tax issues. I thought it would be useful to capture them here, as […]
In an interesting and enlightening new book on the interaction between statistics, predictions, data and human behaviour, Nate Silver (of the New York Times) asks the question “Why is baseball easier to predict than presidential elections?”. It’s just one case study among many that he looks at to try and understand whether humans have got better at predicting outcomes ...
Over the past decade or more the Sri Lankan economy has become less and less open to the world than it has ever been. Exports to GDP has nearly halved; the share of trade in overall growth has fallen, our overall tariff protection rates are higher now than in the past; our export diversification and […]
During a recent visit to the renowned architecture firm ‘Foster + Partners’ in London (of ‘Gherkin’ building fame), I was struck by how interdisciplinary their team was. And it was a reflection of how interdisciplinary their projects – in 70+ countries – had needed to become, marrying the built environment with concerns around mobility, sustainability, … Continue reading Interdisciplinary Design ...
Was passing by this on the way to work this morning and remembered that this is a big week for Woori Bank and indeed the South Korean government. Way over a decade since the government had to bail out Woori in the aftermath of the Asian Financial Crisis, it is trying to divest it’s stake in the bank and recover tax-payer ...
Health and pharma research financed privately by private corporations have the incentive of high returns on research that leads to successful drug development. However, public research on health is not as easily financed. It can be argued that public research on health exhibits public good characteristics, and requires a more active intervention to provide. I came across an interesting initiative ...
As the world marks this year’s Consumer Rights Day today on the theme of ‘Healthy Diets’, the global consumer trends around health and natural foods offer lucrative new markets. The increase in awareness on healthy diets and demand for health and wellness food products globally opens a great opportunity for producers from Sri Lanka. With a heritage of natural […]
How can Sri Lanka stand out as a tourism destination? That’s a question that continues to challenge tourism development officials and hospitality industry professionals alike. The country faces a twin challenge of meeting ambitious targets (the latest one of 4 million tourists by 2020) while also attracting higher-end tourists. It’s certainly not a pipe dream. […]
