{"id":72425,"date":"2017-12-03T15:15:47","date_gmt":"2017-12-03T22:15:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=72425"},"modified":"2017-12-03T15:15:47","modified_gmt":"2017-12-03T22:15:47","slug":"sri-lanka-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/12\/03\/sri-lanka-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka Economy"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Nalaka Godahewa<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

As you know , Sri Lanka gained independence in 1948. That was 69 years ago.<\/p>\n

Since independence except for two years;1954 and 1955,\u00a0 Sri Lanka\u00a0 has always had a budget deficit. These deficits were mostly bridged through local and foreign borrowings.<\/p>\n

When Mr Mahinda Rajapaksa became the 5th executive president of the country in 2005,\u00a0 the total national debt stood at Rs\u00a0 2,222 billion<\/p>\n

But when he left the presidency after 9 years the national debt had grown to\u00a0 Rs 7,391<\/p>\n

Rs 5,169 billion had been added to the national debt within those 9 years.\u00a0 That is an average of Rs 575 Bn per year.<\/p>\n

Where did that money go ?\u00a0 To understand this let us look at the accomplishments of the government during this period.<\/p>\n

The 30 year long internal conflict ended in 2009 with the complete elimination of LTTE<\/p>\n

A large number of development projects were completed while many others were already in progress.<\/p>\n

Colombo city was rated the fasted growing city in Asia at a survey conducted by Master Card<\/p>\n

Colombo Stock market was rated the most sustainable stock market in Asia by\u00a0 Capital Finance International of UK.<\/p>\n

The Sri Lankan Economy had grown 4 times from\u00a0 USD 20 Bn to USD 80 Bn<\/p>\n

The unemployment had reduced from 8.3% to 4.3%<\/p>\n

Poverty had reduced from 15% to 8%<\/p>\n

The total National Debt as a percentage of Economy had reduced from 102.3% to 70.3%<\/p>\n

The inflation had reduced from 9 % to 3.3%<\/p>\n

The house hold electricity availability had increased from 73% to 98%
\nAvailability of clean drinking water had increased from 72% to 90%<\/p>\n

Budget deficit had narrowed from 7.5% to 5.7%<\/p>\n

The economy was growing as an average of 7% for three consecutive years.<\/p>\n

But then the government changed in January 2015 . A new set of rulers assumed duties.<\/p>\n

Almost 3 years later where do we stand now?<\/p>\n

The National debt had been rising at an alarming rate.<\/p>\n

By June 2017 the National Debt stood at 10,163 Billion.<\/p>\n

That is a 37.5% increase in 2 \u00bd years.<\/p>\n

Debts amounting to Rs 2,772 billion has been added in just 2 \u00bd years.<\/p>\n

It is like increasing the national debt by Rs 3 billion every day<\/p>\n

The previous government had borrowed Rs 5,169 billion over 9 years<\/p>\n

The current government has borrowed 54% of that in just 2 \u00bd years.<\/p>\n

Today the per capita debt burden of a citizen stands at\u00a0 Rs 462,000<\/p>\n

Rs 126,000 of this per capita debt has been added by the current government over\u00a0 2 \u00bd years.<\/p>\n

Previous administrations borrowed money and built national assets for the future generations<\/p>\n

Habours, Airports, Roads, Highways, Irrigation projects, Power plants,<\/p>\n

What has this government done with all the money that they borrowed?<\/p>\n

Think for your self\u2026\u2026 where have we gone wrong ?\u00a0 How are we going to rectify the situation.<\/p>\n

By Nalaka Godahewa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Nalaka Godahewa As you know , Sri Lanka gained independence in 1948. That was 69 years ago. Since independence except for two years;1954 and 1955,\u00a0 Sri Lanka\u00a0 has always had a budget deficit. These deficits were mostly bridged through local and foreign borrowings. When Mr Mahinda Rajapaksa became the 5th executive president of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72425","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=72425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72425\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}