{"id":103076,"date":"2020-06-01T16:21:28","date_gmt":"2020-06-01T23:21:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=103076"},"modified":"2020-06-01T16:21:28","modified_gmt":"2020-06-01T23:21:28","slug":"could-china-help-sri-lanka-to-become-a-developed-nation-part-c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/06\/01\/could-china-help-sri-lanka-to-become-a-developed-nation-part-c\/","title":{"rendered":"COULD CHINA HELP SRI LANKA TO BECOME A DEVELOPED NATION? (PART C)"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

When the\ncountry was in a difficult time after ending the civil war, the Rajapaksa\nregime was given strong support by China and Russia, if a situation to let down\nSri Lanka arose, both countries promised to exercise their power, most probably\nveto power against the international attempts to condemn Sri Lanka. India\nwas also concerned about the international developments against Sri Lanka which\nmight later direct to India too. <\/em>  However, the election campaign in 2015 was\nmanipulated to a hidden motivation of international forces against China, but\nthe frustrated domestic politicians got caught to international forces with\nknowing or without knowing of undisclosed hidden objectives of foreign\nforces.  The politics of the domestic\nfront to defeat the Rajapaksa regime was formed by an unholy collision with\ncontradictory hidden objectives, and they used to criticize China against the\nRajapaksa regime in the political platform. \nThat was the mistake that the yahapalana regime was done during the\nelection period in 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Current\nSri Lanka\u2019s economy has gone to backwardness in many areas such as foreign\nassets, international trade, employment generation, inflation, interest rate,\npoverty, and many other areas. The live television shows indicate that people\nwere demanding the government to reduce inflation and reliefs for day to day difficulties.  The president and the prime minister of the\ncurrent regime need to tell the truth to people. The Public might disappoint on\nthe condition created by the COVID pandemic and they should understand that the\npresident or the prime minister cannot order economic growth or to reduce the\nprices of goods and services or to away the corona pandemic they are an effect\non the market process.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nsolution to this backwardness is increasing the pace of economic growth and\ncurrent Sri Lanka needs injecting the US $ 100 billion or more to the economy\nduring the next ten years, however, the economy of the country has no such a\ncapacity and the COVID pandemic has flattened the incoming flow of foreign\nexchange to the country. Many political reforms, which were taken after 1980\nincreased spending, which was covered by corruption in previous regimes and no\ngains received from such spending.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

China\nprovides about the US $ 400 billion foreign assistance to 140 countries it is\nobvious from current international aid statistics that Sri Lanka cannot get a\nlarge sum of cash aid from China during the next 10 years, but Sri Lanka can\nshare this requirement with China using non-cash supports opening the country\nto Chinese investments in private business and the government sector.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many cash\nassistance needs to pay back and it would impact the repayment capacity of the\ncountry.  The attraction of cash and\nanother form of loan for investments have a positive impact on debt services.\nThe policymakers of Sri Lanka need to understand how a country could get\nsupports from China without going into a debt trap. There are many techniques,\nwhich could be used to avoid the debt burden to the country, however, Sri Lanka\nneeds to get assistance from China without gaining debt burdens. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka\nurgently needs Chinese helps for several vital areas.  Tourism development based on cultural and\nreligious-based would enhance foreign exchange earning quickly, however, there\nare several barriers in the area.  When\nthere is a feeling about the risk of movement, the motivation for travel may be\na downward trend. To deal with this trend the government needs to obtain\nsupport from the Chinese government to encourage tourists from China to Sri\nLanka. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tourism\nhas identified as an effective to foreign exchange earnings and employment\ngeneration, nevertheless, the tourism sector suffered from constraints of\nplanning and investments because the policymakers are lacking knowledge and\nskills in planning sectoral policies to competitively improve the\nindustry.  The tourist arrivals from\nChina should be annually increased to 5 million.  The current economic trend in the region\nshows that this is an achievable target with many improvements in the sector\nwith supports of China, the industry needs direct injections of ideas to\nattract people and investment should be cooperative with China sharing the\nbenefits to both sides. To attract tourists from China and the inflow of\ninvestment need changes in the style of business management. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ngovernment may be looking for cash injections like how did Gorbachev seek cash\nwhen the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s, it would not happen.  Sri Lanka needs broad support from China to\nmake a positive impact on society.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka\nrequires tourism sector employees with the ability to speak in the Chinese\nlanguage. Chinese tourists are not concerned about the English language and\nwant to converse with their language. \nAlthough Sri Lankans treat English as superior Chinese tourists don\u2019t\ncare about it.    Educating the Chinese language to the Sri\nLankan tourism sector employees is an essential condition to attract tourists\nfrom China while expanding tourism infrastructure, which needs large scale\nhotels as well as many medium-sized and small hotels. The revenue of tourists\nis the major factor in selecting residence and usually people tours once in\nthree years or four years.  Chinese\ntourists like the place where they visit, if places have an environment with a\nChinese style speaking in Mandarin language, opportunities with light gambling\nservices, leisure activities, good security, excellently clean services in a\nresidential environment. Many residential services in the tourism industry in\nSri Lanka have no clean environment.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka\nhas thousands of religious places related to all religions and they need to\norganize and develop as shrines and worshiping places to domestic and foreign\ntourists. Many religious administrators have no clear understanding of the\nmanagement of places the management of the environment, religious programs and\nfinance, and many matters. The most significant characteristic of Shinto\nBuddhism in Japan is to maintain a very clean attractive place to visitors of\nthe shrines bring them the second time. \nIt needs training in religious administrators.  The best example for this is Japan how they\nuse shrines as an attractive place for tourists.  Although these activities are costly, they\nwill generate a massive volume of employment for the country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other\nessential requirement is the abolition or reduction of the charges for a\ntourist visa to US$10 for 30 days period because Sri Lanka needs to maintain\nthe sustainability of the industry rather than exploiting tourists. As a result\nof radical changes in the tourism industry, the country can increase tourist\narrivals from China to five million annually during the next ten years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without\ncash injecting into the economy of Sri Lanka, China can encourage its business\ncommunity to invest in Joint ventures in Sri Lanka.  The concept of joint ventures directly helps\nSri Lankans to learn business management and the application of\ntechnology.  The process should not be\nlimited to a specific area of the country. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are\npotentials to develop joint ventures for agriculture, industry, construction,\nand services, and the investment ratio in a joint venture should be limited to\nor specified to a ratio identified by the government. Chinese investors can\noffer shares of the business to Sri Lankan and convert the business project to\njoint ventures.  This type of investment\nwould not affect the debt level of the country and the government\u2019s role is to\nprotect such ventures and liberalize to control the repatriation of earned\nprofits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ncurrent government of Sri Lanka has no intention to make serious damage to the\nport and industrial park developments initiated during the Rajapaksa regime\nbefore 2015. It is quite clear that Sri Lanka would not gain any advantage\nthrough impediments enforcing against Chinese investments. The country needs\ninvestments from China and India. Both countries could offer supports to Sri\nLanka.  Whichever the political party in\nSri Lanka needs understanding that short-term political rhetoric should not mix\nwith long-term economic development policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China has\neffectively and massively engaged in economic development in the Asian region\nwithout involving political or ideological differences.  Chinese investments in Korea, Taiwan Vietnam,\nSingapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines positively impacted economic\ndevelopment and similar way Sri Lanka must allow Chinese investors to engage in\neconomic activities.  In this way, Sri\nLanka should allow Chinese banks to open branches in Sri Lanka because the\nbaking system in the country has no sufficient capital to finance for foreign\ninvestors.  A massive volume of lending\ncapacity of trading banks in Sri Lanka stuck with non-performing credits to\ngovernment and private sectors, the saving capacity of Sri Lanka is not\nsufficient to maintain required capital adequacy to make massive quantum of\ninvestment finance.  The basic incentive\nto attract Chinese private investments is allowing Chinese banks to open\nbranches in Sri Lanka and allow such branches to attract deposits from Chines\npeople from all over the world. This strategy would massively increase foreign\nexchange reserves supporting to increase and stabilize the international value\nof Sri Lanka Rupee.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the\nmarket economic system began in 1978, Sri Lanka’s government allowed foreign\nbanks to open branches, despite the opposition directed by domestic banks for\npaying interest on current account balances, liberalized credit conditions of\nforeign banks, many American and European bank branches were opened but they\nleft the country after July riots in 1983. \nNow Sri Lanka\u2019s war is over, and there is a good environment for\ninvestments despite the opposition to Chinese investments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do\nChinese investments limit to industrial activities?  This is a critical question because of\npolitical opinion concerns that investments in agriculture and plantation\nindustry should be in the hands of Sri Lankans, however, agriculture especially\nthe production of rice and agriculture-based industries such as sugar\nproduction and many others desperately need modernization with new technology,\nproduct invention and cost minimization with improved product qualities.\nAgriculture and plantation industry alone could be double the production and\nproduct quality if the right innovations and qualities applied, therefore, Sri\nLanka could massively improve agriculture and plantation sectors with Chinese\ninvestments and need opening these two sectors for Chinese investment as joint\nventures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS When the country was in a difficult time after ending the civil war, the Rajapaksa regime was given strong support by China and Russia, if a situation to let down Sri Lanka arose, both countries promised to exercise their power, most probably veto power against the international attempts to condemn Sri Lanka. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-edward-theophilus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103076","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=103076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103076\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}