• Gender-based Budgeting for 2024: More Tokenism or True Commitment? 

  de Silva, Venya; Kemps, Portia (Colombo: Daily Mirror, 2023-12-07)

  With the committee stage debates on Budget 2024 still ongoing, our interest has been piqued by a term that has gained relatively little attention since it was mentioned in the Budget Speech presented on 13 November 2023: ...

• Zoned Out: Export Ambitions Hindered by Land Limitations 

  Abeysinghe, Subhashini; Arangala, Mathisha (Colombo: Daily Mirror, 2023-10-12)

  The experiences of East Asian and Southeast Asian countries such as Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand, show that foreign direct investment (FDI) into export-oriented sectors is critical to accelerate growth in manufactured ...

• The Troubling Lack of Compliance by Public Authorities With RTI Act 

  Weerasooriya, Nishana; Talayaratne, Shannon (Colombo: Daily Mirror, 2023-09-28)

  Today (28 September) marks the international day for universal access to information. This year’s theme is ‘the importance of the online space for access to information'. Public access to information is an essential element ...

• Schrodinger’s Banks: The Immediate Need for Policies to Ensure Financial Stability 

  Peiris, Udara (Colombo: Daily Mirror, 2023-09-14)

  Sri Lanka is entering into a new, dangerous phase in its economic recovery. Although macroeconomic stabilisation has made progress, financial stabilisation needs immediate attention. The combination of covid-era loans and ...

• Large Scale Infrastructure, Small Scale Disclosure: Fertile Ground for Corruption 

  Abeysinghe, Subhashini; Pabasara, Chathuni (Colombo: Daily Mirror, 2023-08-31)

  Large sums of money borrowed for large infrastructure projects is a key contributor to Sri Lanka’s Mountain of foreign debt, which the country is struggling to pay back. Lack of transparency, coupled with poor governance ...

• Too Many ‘Known Unknowns’ in Sri Lanka’s IMF Programme 

  de Mel, Nishan (Colombo: Daily Mirror, 2023-08-17)

  Sri Lanka’s programme is planned to deliver 71 outcomes by the end of September. Presently, as of the end of July, 35 are “met” and 14 are “unknown”. There are 8 more that are “not met”. That means the ratio of unknowns ...

• Another Export Target Destined to Be Missed? 

  Abeysinghe, Subhashini; Arangala, Mathisha (Colombo: Daily Mirror, 2023-08-03)

  In a recent statement, Sri Lanka's Export Development Board (EDB) announced plans to secure USD 31.3 billion revenue from total exports (both goods and services) by 2027. The EDB expects to double goods export revenue from ...

• The Best Next Step for Improving Tax Collection 

  Siyambalapitiya, Sumini (Colombo: Daily Mirror, 2023-07-21)

  In 2021, the country’s tax revenue as a share of gross domestic product (GDP)reached its lowest level since 1959 – dropping to just 8%. Increasing tax-to-GDP ratio is one of the most important measures of Sri Lanka’s ability ...

• Calculating the Loss to the EPF From Proposed DDR 

  de Mel, Nishan (Colombo: Daily Mirror, 2023-07-12)

  Justice and good decision-making flows in part, from the discipline of public reasoning. The belief in democracy is anchored in the hope of harnessing the power of reasoned decision making that is openly and dialogically ...

• Let’s Shield the EPF With the Instincts of Winston Churchill 

  de Mel, Nishan (Colombo: Daily Mirror, 2023-07-06)

  The private sector workers of Sri Lanka are required by law to transfer 23% of their incomes to the Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) and the Employees’ Trust Fund (ETF) every month, towards their retirement savings. The EPF ...

• Why Does Sri Lanka Claim It Has Less Capacity Than Least Developed Countries for Trade Facilitation? 

  Abeysinghe, Subhashini; Arangala, Mathisha (Colombo: Daily Mirror, 2023-06-22)

  Higher costs and time resulting from opaque, complex, time consuming, manual export and and import procedures discourage businesses from engaging in international trade and undermine their international competitiveness. ...

• Restructuring Domestic Debt Must Be Credible, Fast, Comprehensive 

  Peiris, Udara (Colombo: Daily Mirror, 2023-06-08)

  With the possibility of restructuring domestic debt increasing, there are concerns about the impact of such a restructuring on the financial markets. A limited restructuring, in which only government debt held by the Central ...

• The Need for Governance-Linked State-Contingent IMF Programmes: A Third Way for Sri Lanka 

  Peiris, Udara (Colombo: DailyFT, Colombo: Daily Mirror, Online: International Banker, 2023-04-27)

  The recent sovereign default of Sri Lanka has once again brought attention to the effectiveness of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Extended Fund Facility (EFF) approach. This programmes provides loans of short ...

• Why Tracking the IMF Programme Implementation is of Public Interest 

  de Mel, Nishan; Rajkulendran, Raj Prabu (Colombo: Daily Mirror, 2023-05-25)

  As Sri Lanka enters its 17th International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme, a critical question remains. Will the country break from the past patterns of inconsistency and failure in following the plan it lays out with the ...

• ETCA With India: Time to Shift Focus From Market Integration to Supply Chain Integration 

  Abeysinghe, Subhashini; Arangala, Mathisha (Colombo: Daily Mirror, 2023-04-27)

  This article looks at; 1) what are global supply chains and why do they matter; 2) how new trade deals are focusing more on supply chain resilience than market access; 3) how current trade deals with India are focused on ...

• Improving Lankan Women’s Access to Economic Opportunities: The Business Case 

  Abeysinghe, Subhashini; Siyambalapitiya, Sumini (Colombo: Daily Mirror, 2023-03-30)

  As we in Sri Lanka explore the pathways out of the current crisis, it is imperative that we acknowledge the mammoth contributions that women make to the economy, hidden and unpaid, and seriously consider how to improve ...

• Is Sri Lanka Addicted to Missing Revenue Targets? 

  de Mel, Nishan (Colombo: Daily Mirror, 2023-10-30)

  It is all too familiar that Sri Lanka has a problem in meeting its budgeted revenue targets. Recently, a government member of parliament (MP) who voted in favour of the budget last year, said that the tax increases that ...

• "Sugar Scam” is Not the Whole Iceberg: “Forestalling” Needs a Rule-of-Law Solution 

  de Mel, Nishan (Colombo: Daily Mirror, 2023-11-09)

  On 14 October 2020, taxes on imported sugar were slashed overnight from LKR 50 to LKR 25 cents per kilogram. That is a reduction of 99.5%. This led to much discussion in media and parliament about the large undue profits ...

• Backwards in Blacklisting: Enabling Corruption in Procurement 

  Abeysinghe, Subhashini (Colombo: Daily Mirror, 2023-11-23)

  Failure to tackle corruption is a key factor that contributed to the economic crisis the country is faced with today. Taking concrete steps to reduce corruption, therefore, is critical to recover from the current crisis ...

• For Sri Lanka, a Governance-Linked Bond Might Just Be the Ticket 

  de Mel, Nishan (Colombo: Daily Mirror, 2023-12-21)

  It is a truth universally acknowledged that if Sri Lanka under-performs on its governance corrections, it will underperform on its economic recovery also (with apologies to Jane Austen), the first provides the foundation ...

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