SRI LANKA MUST BE DISASTER READY Thimal PereraChief Executive Officer DFCC Bank Reproduced from the May 2022 edition of LMD. Following his appointment as DFCC Banks’ Chief Executive Officer on 1 January 2022, Thimal Perera moved into the hot seat of a leading financial services institution at a crucial time. After all, Sri Lanka has been grappling with a severe economic and monetary crisis since early this year. A pillar of the bank’s leadership team since 2017 (he has been its Deputy Chief Executive Officer and a board member since 2019), DFCC Bank is now in Perera’s capable hands. He is…
Author: LMD International
Be Honest The beauty of a nation lies in the integrity of its people Reproduced from the April 2023 edition of LMD. Deshamanya Dr. Indrajit Coomaraswamy Former GovernorCentral Bank of Sri Lanka When travelling around Sri Lanka, one comes across breathtaking beauty in all parts of the country. The lush vegetation of the Wet Zone, the sparse beauty of the Dry Zone, the daunting splendour of the hill country and the golden beaches along the coast are compellingly beautiful in different ways. Visitors to the island are always charmed by the smiling friendliness of the people. Sri Lankans also rank…
REFLECTIONS Wijith DeChickera points his fingers at the three Fs in LMD’s campaign to ‘Refresh Sri Lanka’ One must realise there are three Fs on Sri Lanka’s governance report card before aspiring or attempting to refresh and regain lost significance, stability and stature – it’s the sensible thing to do: reflect. THE PAST The first F is a failure of forms. From a constitution subject to tinkering by successive political movements, through a social contract susceptible to hijacking by vested interests, to the checks and balances supposedly guaranteed by the separation and division of powers failing because the three arms…
THE WAY FORWARD Ruchi Gunewardene charts a way forward to regain Brand Sri Lanka Brand Finance’s global perception research on Sri Lanka – which took a steep dive from being placed 73rd in 2022 to 115th in the latest Soft Power Index that was presented at a nation branding symposium in Colombo recently – identified the two main indicators that had the most dramatic impact on the country’s ranking. The symposium organised by the Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing (SLIM) identified that ‘Governance’ and ‘Business & Trade’ were the primary indicators that negatively impacted the nation’s standing in relation to…
Connecting the world It is no secret that Sri Lanka continues to be in the throes of an unprecedented economic crisis even if our precious island may have crawled out of bankruptcy, following the IMF’s approval of the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) on 20 March. So we are taking Billy Ocean’s 1985 hit single ‘When the going gets tough, the tough get going’ in its literal sense and venturing out of the relative comfort zone that our pioneering business magazine of nearly 29 years ago created – by going global with a mission to connect Sri Lankans across the oceans…
FUEL ON THE FLAME Shiran Fernando examines the ramifications of Sri Lanka’s narrowing trade deficit Reproduced from the April 2023 edition of LMD. The trade deficit narrowed last year, falling to its lowest level since 2010; this was driven by higher exports and lower imports. The reduced deficit, as well as performance of exports and imports, needs to be understood to determine if this trend will continue and impact our currency. MERCHANDISE Exports crossed the US$ 13 billion mark for the first time. Despite the impact of the economic crisis, which saw shortages of fuel and essential items, the private…
The continuous migration of Sri Lankans has been a rising issue, which the island nation has been facing for a very long time
ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT Entrepreneurship is a vital component of Sri Lanka’s economy that must be nurtured to ensure continued development – Dr. Janaki Kuruppu Q: How would you assess the entrepreneurial spirit of Sri Lankans? A: Based on my experience in nurturing entrepreneurs, I find Sri Lankans’ entrepreneurial spirit to be limited – especially in rural areas. This could be because of the risk aversion genes that we must have, as well as a lack of exposure to entrepreneurship in their families. The comfort offered by a ‘permanent job’ in the public sector could be the furthest one can get from…
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