e-Con e-News

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Before you study the economics, study the economists!”

e-Con e-News 01-07 June 2025

June furnishes us with humid, dripping, sopping, sodden, swampy examples of how the media in Sri Lanka lives in another world, perhaps in the City of London, or Wall Street, New York. Look how they act surprised by the annual SouthWest Monsoon, which had already long begun in the ocean outside wintry Southern-Eastern Africa (if there’s such a thing as a beginning, to winds) and seasonally lashes the country as it heads for the Himalayas and further north & east. Yet, like transport investigators tardy to the scene of an Ashok-Leyland bus accident, with news-media editorialists lamenting the loss of housing, roofs & lives, faking tears that are soon flushed away with the bountiful rains, the media then faithfully and belatedly tracks the devastation by flood and landslide, just as they devotedly trail the movement of the sun over our heads from Devundra to Pandatharippu in April & August, pretending to be exacting astronomers. But it is all reaction. There is little information for preparing people for this spell of wind & rain, or its failures, what cultivators & workers (the real majority!) should be doing or do, and the expected consequences… – and, where are the interviews with CEB repairing workersthe 50, 000 power outages across the country? – or, what precautions people may take, let alone discussing appropriate clothing or ‘fashions’! So, who decides this local media’s agendas & priorities? Well, we don’t have to look too far… (& don’t act surprised!).

‘USAID spends over a quarter billion dollars yearly

training & funding a vast sprawling network of more

than 6,200 reporters & nearly 1,000 ‘independent’

news outlets or journalism organizations…

the largest global propaganda network ever created’

– Lee Camp (see ee Media, Giant US Propaganda Web!)

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‘Overseas School of Colombo’s first-ever Media Open Day sets

a new standard – opening its doors, hearts & soul to the media’

(see ee Workers)

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‘CIC Holdings delivers resilient FY25 results with 9% topline growth’

(see ee Agriculture)

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‘LOLC Group posts Rs41bn net profit; assets top Rs2trillion mark

The robust performance was fueled by steady expansion in financial services,

a series of strategic international acquisitions, & improving economic conditions.’

(see ee Finance)

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Almost every single English medium in Sri Lanka reproduce & repeat company ‘press releases’, most times without changing one hyperbolic word. Since these ‘news’ items are actually non-industrial products (mere hulang) from these import merchant’s public relations (PR) agencies, shouldn’t they be clearly delineated as ‘paid’ advertisements? Most ‘news’ are pure ads, and repeated verbatim throughout media (see ee News Index below)!  If this merchant media (owners, editors, reporters) are being paid (over & under the table) to reprint these ‘infocommercials’, shouldn’t they be declared as income and taxed, or exposed by the Bribery Commission? What says the Internal Revenue Department about these ‘paid printers’ who are usually full of ‘shlock & awe’ about politicians’ corruptions, etc? That is, when they are not photocopying corporate junk or state ‘media divisions’ signalling good intentions, all liberally deploying the infinitive tense: ‘to do’, ‘to implement’, with no follow-up on any such thing done or implemented. Then there are the mind-boggling array of prizes and awards being handed out daily – shouldn’t all these elaborate ceremonies be listed as tax-evading expenditures? Does the answer lie with that award-winning & prize-giving Institute of Marketing (SLIM), which claims to be Sri Lankan?

     In this month of banks & financial institutions releasing their ‘first quarter’ (1Q2025) statements, shouldn’t their hyper claims about revenues & profits & premiums be modified by use of the words ‘reported’ or ‘claimed’? & how do they make their profits? Is it investment in production? or usury & speculation in real-estate? No such questions are asked! The nouns, verbs, adjectives & adverbs used in headlines include: ‘surpass, highest, top, robust, hike, achieve, leads, historic, strong’ – while providing no investigation into such nouns, verbs, adjectives & adverbs by the so-called ‘independent’ ‘free’ ‘nursemaids of democracy’ and ‘5^th Estate’, offer no veracity to such claims. And it’s not just companies but ubiquitous nosey envoys (going far beyond their station, as if sticking up a middle finger in scatological defiance) & so-called NGOS (funded by OGs – other governments) – look (above) at the self-righteous hype of these international schools – which are illegal under the Education Act but operating under the Business Act.

     Meanwhile, the Central Bank Governor, that good ‘non-medical Dr’ N Weerasinghe (A Heroic Lion) assures the US Chamber of Commerce in Sri Lanka (AmCham), that the ‘Collapse of the economy in 2028 is a myth’! Yet, one media cheerleader even exerts themselves to caution, albeit in obtuse financial jargon:

Sri Lanka ‘risks’ asset price inflation without real economic gains

‘Merchandise trade indicators reinforce concerns, with import expenditure

jumping 12.7% year-on-year to US$6.57bn in the first 4 months of 2025,

widening the trade deficit to $2.26bn. A notable surge in motor vehicle imports,

 up a staggering 707.9% y-o-, has contributed to the imbalance, outpacing

export growth despite a 6.4% uptick in export earnings. While tourism earnings

rose to $257mn & remittance inflows hit $646mn, foreign investments in

government securities saw a net outflow of $12mn signaling persistent

global investor caution. ‘One would take a fleeting look at the data & say

bulls may be charging forward… but they should keep an eye on

storm clouds ahead. Without real economic productivity, Sri Lanka risks

liquidity-fueling asset price inflation rather than sustainable progress.’

(see ee Economists)

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The controversial Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) leader NM Perera’s 120^th Birth Anniversary falls on June 6. As Finance Minister of a government that had won by a landslide in 1970, he famously informed his PM, Sirimavo Bandaranaike: ‘Madam, the kitty is empty.’ We all know what followed next, in 1971 (insurrection), 1973 (OPEC), 1974 (famine), and 1975 (destabilization), and sabotage of any industrial endeavours. And while now ‘Next’ turns out to be, not what comes after, but another English company stealing our labour, it is apropos that present LSSP leader Tissa Vitarana’s resounds the alarm, with a call to ‘Save Sri Lanka – We are in Danger‘. (see ee Focus)

     Indeed, with the US attack on Russia’s nuclear force on June 1, the white world appears ready to imperil the whole world, including themselves. Yet, their media diverted to a purported rift between US President Don Trump and a senior advisor, E Musk, who only appear to differ on the recipe for how to cook & eat us, and our ranking on their menu!

     Vitarana recalls the accomplishments of Sri Lanka’s first political party, the LSSP, formed in 1935 under English colonial rule (but, what about AE Goonesinha’s Ceylon Labour Party formed in 1928?). Vitarana lists the LSSP’s early ‘22 Demands’ including ‘free education & health, and complete trade union rights for all employees’. He also recalls the jailing of their leadership by the English (we should note here that SA Wickremesinghe was also jailed by the English, as a founder of the Communist Party of SL, which gave their full support to the USSR’s defeat of Germany’s Nazi war machine).

     Vitarana also describes the LSSP’s controversial coalition with the SLFP, which resulted in LSSP leader Colvin R de Silva’s formulation of the first Republican Constitution in 1972. It turns out our English rulers and their readers do not know or care about what a Republic really means. He thus draws attention to the dangerous military agreements demanded by the USA & India that undermine such claims to be a Republic. He also describes the current state of affairs where ‘70% of families in Sri Lanka [live] below the poverty line’, adding: ‘Farmers & their families are deeply in debt to traders & mill owners. Suicides go unreported.’ He notes LSSP leader and Finance Minister NM Perera, who ‘by discouraging imports… promoted the national economy by increasing local food production & value-added industries’. Yet, curiously, there’s no mention of the modern (machine-making) industrialization required (as noted by the Karl Marx he invokes), to sustain all these otherwise utopian demands…

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While we may wonder about such terms as ‘Global North’ (where Russia & much of Asia is also located) and ‘Western’ (which for us is firstly Andhra, Kerala, Tamilnadu & Africa), Shiran Illanperuma wonders: Can Global South Investments Develop Sri Lanka? (see ee Focus) He quotes the incessantly quoted Singaporean leader Lee Kwan-Yew who noted ‘in many newly independent states, the ‘will to resist often melts in the face of hard power’,’ while noting our bamboo-like wavering between ‘winds’ from the east & west. Illanperuma notes the recently signed ‘$3.2billion investment from Chinese state-owned enterprise Sinopec for an oil refinery’ in Hambantota, which Indian news agency IANS claims has hit ‘obstacles’. If it materializes, the investment would be ‘Sinopec’s first overseas refinery, creating opportunities for several downstream chemical industries’. He also notes how ‘monopoly interests exist at every level of the agricultural sector, from the provision of credit, seeds, and fertilizers, to the processing, storage, transport, and marketing of the finished product’. He points to the crucial lack of ‘a real state-owned development bank’, unlike in the rest of Asia, and the challenge of overall coherence – requiring Sri Lankan people’s own responsibility to impose our priorities.

     Illanperuma speaks of a ‘New’ Cold War – however we often wonder about such formulations. The wars in Asia – South, East, West & North – have indeed been ‘frozen’ since 1945, and more than just ‘Cold’, but also quite hot & horrific. The term implies a certain mutuality of aggression, when in fact, the US (& Europe) have for centuries been invading our countries and have only temporarily withdrawn in the face of resistance. How easily this merchant media tries to make us forget. He criticizes the entry of Israel into this country, even as Israel is nothing but a forward settler ‘province’ & frontline of the USA & Europe, etc, formed (clearly as a terrorizing trap for Muslims and Jews!), after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, along with various ‘Arab’ satrapies, who also enable the US & EU horror. Naming these wars correctly as white wars would go a long way to recognizing ‘thy enemy’ and who are friends really are…

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Then following in this ee Focus, Vinod Moonesinghe analyzes the positives & drawbacks of the NPP government’s ‘Budget 2025 Industrial Zone Proposals: Challenges & Solutions’. He notes the allocation of ‘Rs500mn for 5 industrial parks, planned in Kankesanthurai, Mankulam, Iranawila, Galle, and Trincomalee’, but worries about a ‘lack of outstation industrial ecosystems’. He sees the need for large amounts of sulphuric acid from Paranthan, wih the Ministry proposing that the government-owned Lanka Phosphate make ‘ single super phosphate’ from the rock phosphate found in the Eppawela deposit, in Trincomalee – but suggests it ‘would prove very expensive and uneconomical. He believes there is ‘an idea of the ad-hoc nature of economic planning in Sri Lanka, and [a] lack of theoretical knowledge regarding the process of industrialisation’. He notes, ‘Trincomalee could exploit its natural harbour and its proximity to Eppawela to avoid costly inland transport and develop industries based on sulphuric acid and rock phosphate processing’.

     He wishes the government would also look ‘to revive rail freight, eg, to reduce logistics costs for bulk chemicals’, which would require rebuilding ‘port-rail links for container transport’, and calls for the offer of ‘subsidised rail rates for industries in the new zones’. He concludes: the ‘2025 Budget’s industrial zone plans have potential but suffer from disjointed planning, transport inefficiencies, and unrealistic scaling’.

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‘The most difficult struggles of the imperialist countries since

the 18^th century had… been with… their own settlers’

– Emmanuel Arghiri, quoted in SBD de Silva’s

The Political Economy of Underdevelopment, 1982

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This ee Focus continues looking at Sri Lanka’s Import-Export Mafia, via Chapter 5 of SBD de Silva’s monumental study. SBD’s thesis is proved in the incessant & saturated barrage in the media in Sri Lanka on the need for exports & foreign investment (for what? asked de Silva, to import their cars?). He also cogently rooted the English sabotaging of industrialization in Sri Lanka in capitalism’s ‘immanent tendency to stifle, suffocate & push back the full realization of the developmental potential of rival capitalisms. It is the nature of capital itself to demand the ousting of rival businessmen… the very basis of the central contradiction in capitalism arising from the appropriation of surplus value by fewer & fewer capitalists, while the production process is increasingly socialized.’

     SBD de Silva saw the world’s economies divided into non-settler colonies like Sri Lanka, where the natives are the majority but are ruled by expatriate investors ruling from metropolitan capitals; whereas in the countries of ‘new settlement’ (US, Canada, Australia, etc) settlers through genocide had become the ruling majority and replicated the metropolitan economies; and then there are settler-colonies (South Africa, Congo, Kenya, Rhodesia, the Maghreb, etc) where there were a sizeable population of settlers, but the natives were still the majority. So genocidal settlers did not call for exports or rely on imports:

Settlers pressed for ‘policies committed to building up

internal rather than export markets, & even for protection

for industrialization despite what they saw to be

the opinion of English manufacturing interests

– MR Dilley

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In Sri Lanka, English capital has been allowed to remain intact through a ‘post-colonial’ alliance between London’s investors and Colombo’s merchants who are thoroughly proud of their mimicking of English culture. Whereas, in the settler colonies, having first detached from their ‘parent’, they combatted or challenged attempts ‘by metropolitan capitalism to stifle their autonomous growth’ openly fighting London’s investors, shippers & factory owners, proudly ‘sabotaging’ Paris’s dictates. They won this ‘freedom’ through their insistent assertiveness and ‘political conflicts with the metropolitan interests’. Even in the non-settler colonies, relations with foreign investors in European capitals ‘were not entirely harmonious’. In Sri Lanka, eg, the English coffee planters engaged themselves in the country’s first constitutional struggles, ‘demanding a program of public works – roads, bridges and railways – and wanted a hand in the colonial budget’. However, London’s ‘absentee’ investors have always seen their ‘native’ brown satraps as more malleable…

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With the recent local government elections in Sri Lanka being lamented as a ‘fiasco’, ee Focus continues looking at the 19^th century roots of the USA’s political & economic mafia (actually the ruling capitalist class) through that original NGO – the ‘charity’ known as New York’s Tammany Hall, via Gustavus Myer’s history. It examines the origins of the US Democratic & Republican Parties‘ controls of the candidates through the role of ‘inspectors’ who chose delegates to party conventions ‘as they pleased.’ Sometimes factions of parties had simultaneous meetings in the same hall, at other times they prevented factions from entry to meetings through their ownership of the hall’s property, and usually through the use of gangsters – their main concern being their ‘share in the division of plunder’, ie, the ‘spoils’ of office, as they fronted for the then-nascent and rising banks, transport, railway and shipping corporations. We should remind readers of Tammany’s misuse of original American ‘native’ language such as ‘Wigwam’ (Ojibwa) to describe Tammany’s headquarters & ‘Sachems’ (Narragansett) to refer to the real leaders hidden in backrooms: the real rainmakers…

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ee is dedicated to the memory of the dedicated scholarship of SBD de Silva, whose 7^th death anniversary will occur in the coming week. We have wished to bring to ee readers the issues SBD foregrounded (‘Why don’t our garment factories make a pin?’) to transform Sri Lanka’s still-colonial labour-intensive and unproductive import-export plantation economy; to go beyond what our otherwise-occupied mass merchant media wishes to waste our eyes & minds & time on: They prefer to broadcast the retail crimes of petty criminals versus the wholesale crimes of multinational banks & corporations (eg, Unilever, CIC & Ceylon Tobacco Co, Caltex-Exxon, Standard Chartered & Citibank, etc) and the merchants & usurers they puppeteer. SBD, when asked about why he did not seek to express his ideas in the mass media, would retort: ‘What do they know or care about economic issues in Sri Lanka? Let me interview them!’

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Contents:

Bribery Commission: Investigate the Mass Media!