{"id":117782,"date":"2021-09-03T16:11:05","date_gmt":"2021-09-03T23:11:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=117782"},"modified":"2021-09-03T16:11:05","modified_gmt":"2021-09-03T23:11:05","slug":"building-a-digital-economy-in-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/09\/03\/building-a-digital-economy-in-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"BUILDING A DIGITAL ECONOMY IN SRI LANKA"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Mr.\nNamal Rajapaksa recently expressed that he intends to build a digital economy\nin Sri Lanka. It is an astonishing challenge and the task will attract enormous\nresources and time. It is not a simple task in the way the Minister assumes\nbecause Sri Lanka has no resources to build a digital economy. A digital\neconomy relates to information and data. Each cent of earning and expenditure\nshould be digitally recorded if the economy becomes a digital economy. It might\nbe a recording system like in heaven or hell. Sri Lanka converting to heaven or\nhell is the nature of a building digital economy that is hard and gigantic\nwork. As we imagine in heaven or hell, there are no manual records and they\ncontain records of each person not only in this world but also in the entire universe.\nThe other notable character is when a person does a good thing, quickly records\nit in heaven and hell. In this way, recording information is a role and\nexpectation in a digital economy.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When\ncritically look at the intention of Mr. Namal Rajapaksa, it can be assumed that\nMr.Rajapaksa wants to convert Sri Lanka to heaven or hell. This means he wants\nto maintain recording information of the economy like in heaven or hell. The\nother vital aspect of a digital economy is treating information technology as a\nmajor sector of inter-industrial analysis and the current aggregate economy of\nSri Lanka has divided into sectors like agriculture, industry, construction,\nand services. In the current recording system of the aggregate economy, the\ndigital areas are components of other major areas and how can they separate a\ndigital area is to be a massive task. When broadly think about the role or a\ntask, it is impossible and it might be a dream. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\ndigital economy is a broader concept that encompasses every activity of the\neconomy that would be related to modern digital management and it would support\nthe decision-making process. Mr.Namal Rajapaksa supports modernization and if\nwe think about the development history of Japan, many reasons that contributed\nto Japanese development have been modernization that supports innovation and\nmaking profits and advantages from all economic activities. When hearing the\nview of Mr. Rajapaksa, it is my question whether people of Sri Lanka understand\nthe wish of the minister. About 70% of contributors to the economy of Sri Lanka\ndo not understand digital operation and management. They engage in activities for\nliving that contribute to add value to the economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr.Nimal\nRajapakshe is an adolescent minister in the cabinet with enthusiasm and\nwillingness to contribute to the modernization and he also needs more marks to\nbe the future leader of Sri Lanka as people will judge him considering the\ncontribution made to the economy and society. The disguise intention of\nMr.Rajapaksa is to generate efficiency in the economy and it is a good\nintention. The concept of digitalization of operation in the economy came to policy-makers\nseveral decades ago and few areas have been digitalised and the operational\nefficiency of those areas is a question because the operational efficiency\nseems to be much lower than an assumption. The concept of digitalization\ndemands investments for technological changes and application, and the capacity\nfor adapting such an investment process in Sri Lanka is bounded and affected by\nspending capacity in all sectors of the economy.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\nwe understand, it is an unachievable task within the period of the current\ngovernment and the major reason behind the important task is the lack of\nresources and knowledge which many consider as human and non-human apparatus\nassociated with building a digital economy. Building a digital economy should\nnot be a political party-based activity and whether this government is in\npower, the role should be continued to achieve the goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Building\na digital economy is just an expression for publicity of a planned task to\nachieve might be a question for people because people do not know whether Mr.\nNamal Rajapaksa designed an idea with a comprehensive plan or it is a just talk\nto mislead people. A comprehensive plan means it needs vision (what people see\nthe economy after the plan period), mission (the combination of objectives and\nactivities) to achieve the vision, objectives, activities, and the budget for\nall activities, monitoring, and evaluation, remedial management, and audit of\nthe plan. All these are complicated and massive tasks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri\nLanka had many plans, and no plan has been implemented until seeing the\nachieved vision. For example, in 1954, the government developed a four-year\ndevelopment plan with good objectives and activities and it was to put to the\nrubbish bin in 1958 presenting a ten-year development plan. The joke related to\nthese plans was the person who developed a four-year development engineered a\nten-year plan for monitoring the four-year investment program. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many\norganizations in the country have individually digitalised, and they are not\nlinked to a control centre. My feeling is the authority of the economy should\nbe the Ministry of Finance or the Central Bank. People of Sri Lanka understand\nwhich one is the authority of the economy. This is a vital issue that should be\nresolved when the economy becomes a digitalised system. The president of Sri\nLanka should be decided the authority of the economy and link all major areas\ninto a single authority. In this way, the economy could digitalise and there\nshould be an authority to make policy decisions. The president of Sri Lanka\nmust be the authority and leader of the economy that should be operated without\npolitical influence and managing the data structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ndigitalization of the economy could initially provide 50000 graduate employment\nthen annually 10000 jobs in all fields without difference in educated fields\nand it would be the best strategy to provide employment opportunities to the\neconomy. There will be other opportunities and unemployment would not be an\nissue for the country if the economy is successfully digitalised. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many\nuniversities could change curriculum and annual intake and more students could\nbe given opportunities to enter universities and technical colleges. The digital\nprocess would enhance the popularity of the government. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nnext consideration would be cost and needs to attract competent cost projectors\nwho could, and should, be estimated the cost and identified area. How to find\nfunds for various purposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ndigitalization of the economy supports creating a strong training industry that\nsupports maintain the digital economy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When\nthe economy is digitalized, it would create risk from various areas and the\nmajor risk aspect is problems would be created by hackers. China has the best\ntechniques to avoid hackers and the government should get help from China.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS Mr. Namal Rajapaksa recently expressed that he intends to build a digital economy in Sri Lanka. It is an astonishing challenge and the task will attract enormous resources and time. It is not a simple task in the way the Minister assumes because Sri Lanka has no resources to build a digital […]<\/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-117782","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\/117782","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=117782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117782\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}