{"id":113779,"date":"2021-04-25T23:20:43","date_gmt":"2021-04-26T05:20:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=113779"},"modified":"2021-04-25T16:09:03","modified_gmt":"2021-04-25T23:09:03","slug":"meaning-of-economic-development-and-growth-in-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/04\/25\/meaning-of-economic-development-and-growth-in-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"MEANING OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH IN SRI LANKA"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

It\nseems that economic development and growth in Sri Lanka could be used with different\napproaches and many Sri Lankans mean that economic development is individual\nprosperity while growth is an aggregate status that could reflect the comparative\nposition of individuals with the previous pattern of consumption and other\nmatters. Many students who learn macroeconomics in Sri Lanka and other\ncountries know that consumption function may reflect the points to assess the\ndevelopment and growth of a country. The demonstration effect is the best\nexample of this idea and can this apply to determine the size and nature of\neconomic development in Sri Lanka is a question. It is clear that the living\nstandard of people in Sri Lanka has been improved since the independence in\n1948, this could have further improved the population growth reduced to less\nthan 1% and the depreciation of the currency unit controlled as the way country\nwanted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nobserved many UTUBE PROGRAMS\u201d conducted by Sri Lankans attempt to show\ndemonstration effect and could such situation explain as a better way of\nshowing economic development and growth? \nMy answer is not and they are misleading people.  I started working in Sri Lanka in Mid-1975\nand I observed in offices at that time people hadn\u2019t positive attitudes among\npeople many macroeconomic factors such as education and skills development,\npopulation control and productivity improvement, and many factors. When I was\nworking in the offices, I had a feeling that people with outdated attitudes\nwere considering education and skills development as a curse to the country.\nSome employees thought that English knowledge is the only way for development\nand growth, but not work skills and qualities. Later, when people were going\noverseas for working these people with outdated attitudes realized education\nand skills development key factors for the economic development and growth of\nthe country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Now, it also seems that politicians and\neconomic policymakers are stuck with inaccurate determination, and people in\nthe country consider economic development and growth have associated with power\nplaying politics. This is the notable difference meant in Sri Lanka regarding\nthe development and growth compared to many countries. When I have been living\noutside Sri Lanka since 1990, I had a feeling that the economic status of the\ncountry being tremendously improved and the major criteria I was using the\ndemonstration effect. During the COVID 19 season, my mind has pushed to the\nreality and now I feel that the demonstration effect in Sri Lanka is a witchery\nthat hoodwinker of people outside the country. The true nature of development\nand growth is a mound raised by white ants of debts and it is not an economic\nimprovement. Is that the meaning of economic development and growth in Sri\nLanka?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri\nLanka has many limits to growth and development. The best example for this\nsituation is looking at the economic achievements of China and Russia. while it\ncould observe that China and Russia have been achieved rapid economic\ndevelopment and growth with rapid market-oriented policies Sri Lanka has failed\nto show economic development and growth to people like the way Chinese and\nRussian people achieved or demonstrated to the outside world. Policymakers in\nSri Lanka conduct meeting every day and submit reports to political authority,\nbut such actions have not impressed people to feel the economic development and\ngrowth. Why this situation is going on in Sri Lanka? Why politicians are too\nmuch talking about Singapore where the economic growth and development have\nstrongly associated with macroeconomic factors such as population, skills\ndevelopment, investment, liberal approach for controls, regulating market than\ncontrolling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did\nthe government and policymakers consider this situation and identify the\nreasons for not impressing people on the growth and development? The major\nreason is ignoring the concept of balanced growth, which is not a process like\nbalancing accounts in an accounting process. \nBalance growth is a broader concept that is going beyond the\nmicroeconomic process. Growth and development involve in the macroeconomic\nprocess that has links between sectors and the outcome of inter-industrial\ndemonstrates that development is a mound raised by hard-working white ants or\ntermites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Economic\ndevelopment concerns two areas of policies, the restructuring of economic\nactivities considering the cost and benefits of policies to supporting\nmacroeconomic progress and directing investments for productive and possible\ndeveloping future links to the economy. As I have seen in Sri Lanka that\nmicroeconomic reforms are needed for the improvement of productivity.  Politically based trade unions and other\nracist organizations have become a barrier to policy development and\nimplementation. The best example is the policy development for the Colombo Port\ncity project. Many critics of racist and trade unions have not made a positive\napproach and the best outcomes have been achieved and will be achieved from the\nproject. The best outcome that could be observed is adding a piece of land to\nthe country that has not been seen since the era of King Vijaya. I read many\narticles about the subject and nobody has mentioned this point.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Economic\ngrowth is an aggregate position of the combination of various sectors\u2019 outcomes\ncompared to the quantitative status of the previous period. The quality of the\nprogress may not ignore because if the quality of the progress is higher it\nwould go to people, most probably the distribution of quality may have unequal\napportionment.  The meaning of economic\ngrowth and development to Sri Lanka should consider as a successful outcome of\nboth processes and the distribution of outcomes among the rural and urban\npopulation. China and Russia have demonstrated the successful outcome of\ndevelopment and growth, but Sri Lanka has collapsed coordination of the two\nprocesses and the main reason for this situation is the self-centered attitudes\nof policymakers and the authority of policy implementation.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ndirect impact of this dualistic process of economic development and growth\nseems that created by the instability of the economic policies of the country\nand the distribution of benefits of projects among people. The second problem\nwith economic development and growth is policymakers have ignored the\nfundamental requirement of balanced growth and turning to politics of development\nfor indulgence by media. The best example is the process of Port City\nDevelopment in Colombo. The benefits of the project expand to a limited volume\nof population and media attempts to close eyes of people for political\nimpression or influence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\npublic needs to comprehend the issues social media out of the focus as many who\nuse social media users have a lack of understanding of the subject matter and\nmy feeling is the management of social media doesn\u2019t bother about the\ndevelopment and growth.  I feel that\nsocial media also working like opium as the way Karl Marx talked about\nreligions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS It seems that economic development and growth in Sri Lanka could be used with different approaches and many Sri Lankans mean that economic development is individual prosperity while growth is an aggregate status that could reflect the comparative position of individuals with the previous pattern of consumption and other matters. Many students […]<\/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-113779","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\/113779","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=113779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113779\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}