Competitive Industry Policy for Economic Developmentin Sri Lanka

This study evaluates Sri Lanka's position by early2000s in terms of Newly Industrialized Country (NIC)status, and explores the lessons which it can learnfrom the East Asian NICs.Accordingly, it has developed a policy strategy toenable Sri Lanka to converge into a more dynamicgrowth path leading towards the NIC status in theforeseeable future. This exercise was deemed usefulbecause Sri Lanka had a superior position over manyless developed countries (LDCs) including the EastAsian NICs four decades ago, but having attemptedvarious economic policy regimes over this period, itstill remains a LDC.The study compared Sri Lanka's post-1977 policyperformance with those of South Korea and Taiwan indetail. The main thrust of the rapidindustrialization and growth in these countries wasidentified as originating from the CompetitiveIndustry Policy (CIP) strategy they used. Theirsuperiority over other LDCs including Sri Lanka wasattributed to the way they used policies such assector targeting, directed credit, foreigninvestment, export processing zones, infrastructuredevelopment, human resource development, and R&Dalong with trade reforms.

Autorentext

Tikiri Agalewatte was educated at the University of Sri
Jayewardenepura,Sri Lanka, and the University of Wollongong, NSW.
He has extensive experience in economic policy analysis at the
Sri Lankan Treasury. Currently he is working as a visiting
lecturer at the University of Wollongong. His main area of
interest is public policy.

Klappentext

This study evaluates Sri Lanka's position by early
2000s in terms of Newly Industrialized Country (NIC)
status, and explores the lessons which it can learn
from the East Asian NICs.
Accordingly, it has developed a policy strategy to
enable Sri Lanka to converge into a more dynamic
growth path leading towards the NIC status in the
foreseeable future. This exercise was deemed useful
because Sri Lanka had a superior position over many
less developed countries (LDCs) including the East
Asian NICs four decades ago, but having attempted
various economic policy regimes over this period, it
still remains a LDC.
The study compared Sri Lanka's post-1977 policy
performance with those of South Korea and Taiwan in
detail. The main thrust of the rapid
industrialization and growth in these countries was
identified as originating from the Competitive
Industry Policy (CIP) strategy they used. Their
superiority over other LDCs including Sri Lanka was
attributed to the way they used policies such as
sector targeting, directed credit, foreign
investment, export processing zones, infrastructure
development, human resource development, and R&D
along with trade reforms.