Enhancing Competitiveness in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka needs to address new challenges if it is to sustain its strong record of economic growth and poverty reduction. The country has in many respects been a development success story, with average growth exceeding 6 percent and a threefold dec...
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| Language: | English en_US |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2016
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2016/06/26535399/enhancing-competitiveness-sri-lanka http://hdl.handle.net/10986/24927 |
| Summary: | Sri Lanka needs to address new
challenges if it is to sustain its strong record of economic
growth and poverty reduction. The country has in many
respects been a development success story, with average
growth exceeding 6 percent and a threefold decline in
poverty using the national poverty line over the past 10
years. However, low productivity, high reliance on
non-tradable sectors and a stale export basket highlight the
need to enhance private sector competitiveness as a way to
create one million new jobs. The Government of Sri Lanka
(GoSL) has recognized the need to adopt a policy agenda that
strengthens the competitiveness of the country’s private
sector in order to achieve inclusive and sustainable growth.
The new Government has emphasized the need to realize Sri
Lanka’s trade potential as a way to accelerate the
transformation of the economy and generate new and more
attractive opportunities for Sri Lanka’s labor
force.Unleashing the competitiveness potential of Sri Lankan
enterprises will require addressing a wide range of factors.
this note focuses on opportunities to improve areas directly
impacting the competitiveness of the private sector,
including streamlining the regulations governing the
activities of the private sector to reduce the cost of doing
business; strengthening trade policies to eliminate biases
against exports; enhancing trade facilitation to reduce the
costs and time it takes to export; enhancing the ability of
the country to attract, retain and integrate FDI; enhancing
innovation and entrepreneurship and strengthening
accessibility to financial services. It is important to
note, that there are small islands of Research and
Development (R&D) progress in Sri Lanka. Going forward,
as Sri Lanka aspires to become a higher middle income
economy driven by higher addedvalue exports, major reforms
will be required in its investment climate; investment,
innovation andtrade policies and the efficiency of the
institutions governing the activities of domestic and
foreign firms.This note summarizes the main findings of this
work and outlines options forimplementation of reforms needed. |
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