{"id":62189,"date":"2017-01-09T19:16:01","date_gmt":"2017-01-10T01:16:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=62189"},"modified":"2017-01-09T09:31:26","modified_gmt":"2017-01-09T16:31:26","slug":"ship-building-ship-repair-hambantota-and-singapore-state-could-have-done-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/01\/09\/ship-building-ship-repair-hambantota-and-singapore-state-could-have-done-better\/","title":{"rendered":"SHIP BUILDING , SHIP REPAIR HAMBANTOTA AND SINGAPORE STATE COULD HAVE DONE BETTER \u2026\u2026\u2026."},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr Sarath Obeysekera<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

Singapore\u2019s true secret\u201d is a government-driven program\u00a0of high savings. Since the\u00a0mid-1950s, workers have been required to pay a large share of their wages (in recent years 20 percent) into the Central Provident Fund. Employers contribute a further 16 percent. The fund meanwhile\u00a0 invests in ways best calculated to power Singapore\u2019s economic growth while simultaneously offering savers a reasonable return.<\/p>\n

This is what we should do in Sri Lanka \u00a0to generate a fund .ETF having a extensive fund base goes \u00a0and lavishly buys off shares of the \u00a0private sector blue chip companies ,What they should have done is ,use the funds to build a Ship Yard in Hambantota \u00a0and invite Chinese \u00a0to operate .Not to hand over the port in\u00a0 a plate .Dubai ,Oman ,and Qatar built Shipyard with state funds .Then invite UK and USA experts to run with Asian Labour ,All this is possible because the leaders wanted to build the country .<\/p>\n

Another \u00a0point \u00a0is that a heavily state-funded\u00a0Singaporean corporate sector can count on a patient capital. Hence Singapore’s rise in finance, electronics, and airport and harbor services. A remarkable example is Singapore\u2019s Keppel Shipyard. Founded in the 1960s, it has consistently grown, even as the once-world-dominating British shipbuilding industry has withered. At last count, Keppel employed more than 30,000 workers, engaged mainly in building offshore oil rigs. By comparison, Harland and Wolff of Belfast, which up to the 1960s, claimed to be the world\u2019s largest shipyard with a workforce of close to 50,000, is now down to 500. A key difference is that no matter how bleak the short-term outlook seemed, Keppel could count on patient capital to tide it over. Harland and Wolff enjoyed no such support and suffered a ratchet effect of redundancies in every downturn. Basically\u00a0it was sacrificed on the bonfire of short-term market forces \u2013 with devastating implications for employment in Belfast and for Northern Ireland more generally.<\/p>\n

Lee Kwan Yew invited British Companies to come back after independence to run shipyards under state control .State apparatchik was honest and the shipyards grew .<\/p>\n

In Sri Lanka ,one example is Colombo Dockyard privatised by then UNP government who \u00a0gave the shipyard on a platter to Japanese for a mere 3.5 Million Dollars and 30 year extendable lease for \u00a0only 2 million Rs per month lease from the Port .Japanese did not want to immediately import their management style as it would not have helped .But they were patient. They allowed local CEO\u2019s to run at will. State did not interfere and the business flourished\u00a0 and Dockyard became leading corporate giant today .<\/p>\n

What I suggest is that state should invest in such ventures and hand over to capable people to run .Appoint honest ministers to oversee.<\/p>\n

President or Prime minister can become Lee Kwan Yew of Sri Lanka<\/p>\n

Dr Sarath Obeysekera<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr Sarath Obeysekera Singapore\u2019s true secret\u201d is a government-driven program\u00a0of high savings. Since the\u00a0mid-1950s, workers have been required to pay a large share of their wages (in recent years 20 percent) into the Central Provident Fund. Employers contribute a further 16 percent. The fund meanwhile\u00a0 invests in ways best calculated to power Singapore\u2019s economic growth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62189","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=62189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62189\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}