{"id":102762,"date":"2020-05-24T15:55:07","date_gmt":"2020-05-24T22:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=102762"},"modified":"2020-05-24T15:55:07","modified_gmt":"2020-05-24T22:55:07","slug":"sri-lanka-after-yahapalanaya-easter-sunday-and-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/05\/24\/sri-lanka-after-yahapalanaya-easter-sunday-and-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka after yahapalanaya, Easter Sunday and Covid-19"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em><strong data-rich-text-format-boundary=\"true\">Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>According to the IMF, in 2014, Sri Lanka\nwas among the fastest growing economies in Asia. Economic growth averaged 6%\nduring the war years from 2006 to 2009 and increased to 7.4% in the post-war\nyears from 2010 to 2014. The debt to GDP ratio was\nreduced from &nbsp;90%\nin 2005 to 75% at the end of 2014. The All Share Price Index rose from 1,922 in\n2005 to 7,299 by the end of 2014. Sri Lanka\u2019s per capita GDP in US Dollar terms\nincreased threefold from USD 1,242 in 2005 to USD 3,819 by the end of 2014. The\nbiggest infrastructure building programme in post- independence history was\nalso carried out between 2006 and 2014. This economic boom was achieved despite\nthe war, the global food crisis of 2007, the global financial crisis of\n2008-2009 and the highest crude oil prices in history. Crude oil cost an\naverage of USD 74 per barrel from 2006 to 2009 and USD 103\nfrom 2010 to 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After January 2015 everything went in\nreverse. The economic growth rate dropped to 5% in 2015 and declined year after\nyear ending up at 2.3% by 2019. The value of the US Dollar appreciated against\nthe Rupee from Rs.130 in 2014 to 181 by October 2019. Sri Lanka\u2019s total\noutstanding debt increased by 74.4% from Rs. 7.39 trillion at the end of 2014, to\nRs.12.89 trillion by October 2019. Between January 2015 and October 2019, the\ntotal foreign currency borrowings of the yahapalana government in the form of\nSovereign Bonds, Sri Lanka Development Bonds, Syndicated Loans and Currency\nSwaps totaled over USD 26 billion. Despite this borrowing spree, absolutely\nnothing of lasting value was built by the yahapalana government. The All Share\nPrice Index declined from 7,299 in 2014 to 5,990 by the end of October 2019.\nYet during the entire period from 2015 to 2019 the average price of crude oil was\nUSD 60 per barrel \u2013 the lowest in recent history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There were no external, global reasons\nfor this economic collapse. India and Bangladesh experienced robust growth between\n2015 and 2019. The Easter Sunday bombings of April 2019 exacerbated the\nyahapalana recession. On 16 November 2019, President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa\ninherited an economy that was in shambles. It was in such a context that the\nentire world was engulfed by the Covid-19 pandemic. A worldwide economic crisis\nreminiscent of the 1930s Great Depression is widely expected to follow the\nCovid-19 pandemic. In this new global environment, even the option of going\noverseas in search of greener pastures will be very limited because all\ncountries will be facing economic hardship and mass unemployment. The Covid-19\npandemic has left all Sri Lankans with only one option \u2013 building Sri Lanka. The\nchoice is stark &#8211; pull together or perish. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When the Secretary to the President Dr\nP.B.Jayasundera in his capacity as the foremost officer of the public service, recently\nappealed to public servants to contribute whatever they can from their salaries\nto tide over this crisis, the opposition attacked him viciously. Knowing fully\nwell that this was only a request for voluntary contributions, they tried to\nportray it as a compulsory deduction. Dr. Jayasundera played a central role in\nthe 2006-2014 economic boom. The opposition obviously hopes to undermine the\ngovernment\u2019s economic recovery efforts by singling out capable state officials\nlike him for attack. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We should all realize that this yahapalana\npolitical culture of vilification and false propaganda has no place in the\npost-Covid-19 world. In the difficult times that lie ahead, Sri Lanka\u2019s\neconomic survival and the futures of our children, depend on the vision, ability\nand skill of those running the country. German Chancellor Angela Merkel\nrecently stated that Covid-19 had hit Germany at a time when the economy was\ndoing well and they had the strength to face the crisis. The situation in Sri\nLanka was the exact opposite. We should all be mindful of this reality and make\nour choices and decisions accordingly. Everyone knows what would have happened\nif the yahapalana cabal had been in power when the Covid-19 pandemic hit Sri\nLanka. The team that is now running the country from the President downwards, won\na war that was deemed unwinnable, and presided over the greatest economic boom since\nindependence despite impossible odds between 2006 and 2014. That is the kind of\nleadership needed to steer this country forward in the post-Covid-19 world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Mahinda Rajapaksa<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Prime Minister<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa According to the IMF, in 2014, Sri Lanka was among the fastest growing economies in Asia. Economic growth averaged 6% during the war years from 2006 to 2009 and increased to 7.4% in the post-war years from 2010 to 2014. The debt to GDP ratio was reduced from &nbsp;90% in 2005 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mahinda-rajapaksa","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102762\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}