{"id":96164,"date":"2019-12-09T00:53:33","date_gmt":"2019-12-09T06:53:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=96164"},"modified":"2019-12-08T17:49:59","modified_gmt":"2019-12-09T00:49:59","slug":"the-reality-of-ten-principles-of-government-and-the-national-policy-on-economic-targets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/12\/09\/the-reality-of-ten-principles-of-government-and-the-national-policy-on-economic-targets\/","title":{"rendered":"THE REALITY OF TEN PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT AND THE NATIONAL POLICY ON ECONOMIC TARGETS"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Mr. Bandula Gunawardane, Minister for\nInformation Technology, Higher Education, Technology and Innovation and\nCo-Cabinet Spokesman has made a public statement on ten principles of\ngovernment and the national policy in relation to priorities.  This statement further included major\neconomic targets, which seemed to be not unrealistic as the targets could be\neasily achieved by structural changes in economic management and successful\nmonitoring and remedial management required during the next five years to get\nthe economy to right track and boost production. The most impressive targets\nincluded 6.5% annual GDP growth, Unemployment below 4%, 5% inflation and\ncontrolling the budget deficit to 4% of Gross Domestic Product.  In addition to these targets, it indicated\nthat current per capita income to reach US $ 6500, however, the level of\nforeign reserves and the foreign value of Sri Lanka\u2019s monetary unit have not\nmentioned, most probably current international uncertainty would have\ncontributed to the difficulty in forecasting external performance.  There is no doubt that ten principles of\ngovernment will motivate policy makers of the government sector as well as\npublic who are looking at the policy implementation process of the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of annual GDP growth, it\nappears that it will take ten years to double the economy, however, the\nmonitoring and remedial management process remain at a higher level of\nmotivation and administration free from corruption and the principle of people\ncentric-development would support to maintain a strong public support to the\nnational policy implementation process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GDP growth, lower budget deficit, and\nlower rate of inflation direct to attract private investment and to maintain a\nhealthy interest rate for borrowers to maintain profitable outcomes in\ninvestment firms and technology-based society gives incentives for creating\nmany job opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If there is a healthy rate of growth\nand lower budget deficit, they would be the best incentives for debt problems\nin the country and the government could borrow more for new projects to create job\nopportunities.  The achievement of\nProductive citizenry needs technology-based society and wider disciplinary in\nmanagement of firms with a higher-level productivity reducing expenses.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I read a report in a newspaper which\nstated that the productivity of public sector employees is lower than the\nprivate sector and this should be a serious concern of the relevant authorities\nto identity if employees are paid equal salaries, wages and allowances, why\npublic sector employees\u2019 productivity is lower than private sector. In this\nenvironment, the government should develop criteria for changing salary and\nwages based on the productivity of employees and such a procedure should be\nused to job evaluation of individual employees in the workplaces. The government\nneeds to negotiate the concept with trade unions and come to an agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is also recorded that Colombo Stock\nExchange allowed to list and trade shares in foreign currencies. It is a very\ngood move but needs to understand the risk of the procedure considering what\nhappened in Malaysia and Indonesia late 1990s during the Asian crisis. Risk\nmonitoring should be a priority in this policy changes because there may be\nmanipulators against the government policy and to gain unfair advantages from\nthe progressive policy of the government. \nThe liberal policy of the Colombo Stock Exchange would help to increase\nforeign reserves of the country, but expected results could be achieved only if\nthe firms listing in CSE maintains a higher level of profitability to attract\nbuyers.  Therefore, factors for bull and\nbearer markets need closely monitoring and taking appropriate remedial\nmanagement on time rectify problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka also needs to establish\nregional or district level sub-stock exchanges to list regional small companies\nand combined firms of regional stock exchanges should be listed in the Colombo\nStock Exchange. The current regulations regarding the listing of firms in the\nColombo Stock Exchange has become a barrier to participate rural companies to\nlisting and for this purpose Central Bank needs to develop applicable\nguidelines and legal changes to current system. \nThe development of a practical finance course with good English\nCommunication skills for one-year period and offer to unemployed graduates and\ntrain them for successful workers in finance business will a good solution to\nunemployment and make cultural changes giving rural youth to be leaders and contributors\nto the economy.  This type of policy\naction created 100000 new jobs in the country and boost rural economy by\nmodernization.  Sri Lanka can create\nrestoration like Meiji Restoration took place in Japan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The regional firms need to attract\nforeign investment from India, China, Japan and other Asian country, which\nbring technology to rural sector and entrepreneurial knowledge and skills to\nrural people. Maintaining successful controls to protect investors will be a\nkey to success new policies<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka needs to achieve a higher\nlevel of foreign value to Rupee and down the prices of imports to radically\ncontrol inflation.  In this area Central\nBank has an excellent role to play as a regulator but not a market operator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other vital problem in Sri Lanka is\nmobilization of debt capital for rural firms as trading banks and non-bank\nfinancial institutions have limits to credits as the capital structure and\ndeposits for loanable funds has become a constraint and promoting share capital\nthrough regional stock exchanges would be profitable for rural firms and the\nbanking sector release from the pressure to provide working capital for rural\nfirms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government consideration for\nmodernization with new ideas and maintain proper control and transparency in\nsuch control would support to achieve the reality of economic targets. However,\nthe government and regulators must not forget dishonest elements which will\ncreate to the government. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS Mr. Bandula Gunawardane, Minister for Information Technology, Higher Education, Technology and Innovation and Co-Cabinet Spokesman has made a public statement on ten principles of government and the national policy in relation to priorities.  This statement further included major economic targets, which seemed to be not unrealistic as the targets could be easily […]<\/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-96164","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\/96164","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=96164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96164\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}