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2019 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel

Introduction: Challenges and Opportunities of Sri Lanka’s Post-conflict Economic Development Overview

verfasst von : Sisira Jayasuriya, Dushni Weerakoon

Erschienen in: Managing Domestic and International Challenges and Opportunities in Post-conflict Development

Verlag: Springer Singapore

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Abstract

In May 2009, Sri Lanka’s nearly three-decade-long separatist war ended when government forces crushed the separatist insurgency and annihilated its leadership. A war weary population hoped and expected that this would usher in a period of peace and national reconciliation, political stability and sustained economic growth.

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Nächstes Kapitel Trade and Competition Policies: Implications for Productivity Growth in Sri Lanka

The strategic moves by the various powers in Asia are now widely described as the ‘New Great Game’ in Asia involving China, USA and India drawing parallels with the ‘Great Game’ of the nineteenth century between the British and Russian Empires targeted on countries such as Afghanistan seen as the doorway to India.

The rest of this section draws on Athukorala and Jayasuriya (2015).

These official statistics need to be treated with some caution (see Athukorala and Jayasuriya 2015).

The Department of Census and Statistics reported a Gini as high as 0.48 in contrast to the Central Bank figure of 0.36 (DCS 2015).

This also helped distort a range of conventional measures of economic performance and stability. For example, it boosted national income measured in US dollars and lowered the ratio of external debt to GDP.

This united opposition comprised a wide array of disparate political and social groups including the conservative right wing UNP, the ‘Socialist’ Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP), some Sinhala Buddhist political groups that had previously been part of the Rajapakse government such as the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the Muslim Congress, and various ‘civil society’ organisations and groups. It also gained, though more tacitly, the support of the populist-nationalist Janata Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP).

The Foreign Minister Mr. Mangala Samaraweera visited India just five days after the election, pledging to re-establish good relations, and then visited the USA in early February; at a meeting with the Secretary of State, he made the new policy stance very clear, stating that he hoped to revive and strengthen the very strong bonds Sri Lanka has had with the USA for several decades. It was only after making those visits to India and the USA that he visited China. In mid-February, the President himself visited India—which led to a reciprocal visit by Prime Minister Modhi in early March, the first visit by an Indian Prime Minister since 1987. His second visit, in early March, was to the UK.

For instance, an amendment to the Constitution passed by parliament took away some powers of the Executive Presidency; most notably, it reintroduced a two-term presidential limit and reinstated a Constitutional Council to oversee appointments to independent Commissions.

Mr. Rajapakse’s supporters enjoyed a major electoral success over the coalition government supporters.

Senior figures in the US Administration and international media have claimed, and the claim is now widely repeated as fact, that China had lured Sri Lanka into a debt trap that forced it to hand over the port to China. In fact, the more accurate interpretation of what happened is Sri Lanka fell into a debt trap mainly because of its past short-term borrowings from international (non-Chinese) investors and other financial institutions. China proved to be the best source for the Sri Lankan government to acquire funds to meet repayments to those international investors. Chinese debts to Sri Lanka have been typically long term and on terms not much different to those of multilateral donor agencies.

Arunatilake N, Jayawardena P, Weerakoon D (2011) Sri Lanka. In: Kelegama S (ed) Migration, remittances and development in South Asia. Sage, New Delhi, pp 112–140CrossRef

Department of Census and Statistics (2015) Statistics. Department of Census and Statistics, Colombo

Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka (2017) Sri Lanka: state of the economy 2017. Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka, Colombo

Premachandra A, Sisira J (2015) Victory in war and defeat in peace: politics and economics of post-conflict Sri Lanka. Asian Econ Papers 14(3):22–54CrossRef

Sarvananthan M (2015) Elusive economic peace dividend in Sri Lanka: all that glitter is not gold. Geojournal

Transparency International (2014) Sri Lanka national integrity system assessment 2014. http://www.transparency.org/whatwedo/publication/sri_lanka_national_integrity_system_assessment_2014. Accessed 2 June 2018

Whitehead L (1990) Political explanations of macroeconomic management: a survey. World Dev 18(8): 1133–1146

Titel: Introduction: Challenges and Opportunities of Sri Lanka’s Post-conflict Economic Development Overview
verfasst von: Sisira Jayasuriya
Dushni Weerakoon
Verlag: Springer Singapore
Buch: Managing Domestic and International Challenges and Opportunities in Post-conflict Development
Print ISBN: 978-981-13-1863-4

Electronic ISBN: 978-981-13-1864-1

Copyright-Jahr: 2019
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1864-1_1