KPMG holds 10th MESA Conference in Colombo

By Cassandra Mascarenhas

KPMG’s 10th Middle East and South Asia (MESA) Partners’ two-day conference was successfully concluded in Colombo on Tuesday.

The event brought together over 100 partners from KPMG offices in 15 countries across the region.

Ajith Nivard

A key event in the firm’s global calendar, the two-day conference held at the Cinnamon Grand, revolved around the theme ‘Time to Implement’ and gave the delegates a chance network and share best practices.

The keynote address at the inauguration of the conference was given by Central Bank of Sri Lanka Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal who delivered a presentation on Sri Lanka’s resurgence and unprecedented opportunities.

In his opening remarks, Cabraal noted that the fact that the Government embarked on a number of major infrastructure projects and made progress in getting its macroeconomic fundamentals right while the conflict was ongoing kept the country in good stead once the war came to an end.

“Many leaders of the world missed that trick and after winning wars, they have been ousted out of power but I think we got it right and the progress that we made to get our macro economic fundamentals right kept the country in good stead and the country is now reaping the benefits.”

Commenting on the bid for the Commonwealth Games that was bagged by Australia last week, he stated that although Sri Lanka lost the bid, it still gave the country a chance to showcase itself as a possible destination for such events.

He maintained although our external sector, which is still below the investor rate in spite of an substantial improvement, there has been clear acceptance of Sri Lanka by foreign investors as seen during the bond issue earlier this year which was oversubscribed by seven and a half per cent which shows that the country is on the right track.

“Asia’s global output is improving from a worldwide perspective – the ADB shows that we are moving back to the levels the Asian region had in the 1700s when the total global output was dominated by Asia and we are returning to that situation in a fairly rapid fashion,” Cabraal said.

He identified the booming tourism sector as an obvious opportunity for people to invest in; stating that to reach the set targets, there needs to be the support of investment and interest from bigger global chains.

Agriculture has also taken a new dimension today and he is confident that this sector will take a good position in the economy. Widening industrial development has seen surges in apparels, rubber, gems and jewellery as well as newer sectors such as fisheries, education and IT.

Cabraal also said that FDIs have been rising and Sri Lanka will reach one billion dollars in FDIs this year; the target is to increase it to two to three percent of the GDP over the next couple of years.

The conscious development of infrastructure will bring in new industries, for example, the Hambantota port which will enable industries from ship building to automobile assembling which will in turn change the entire landscape of the country.

He further assured that the incentives for investors will continue.

“There is tremendous growth potential in the North and East and over the last two years. The growth has been phenomenal with a nominal growth of 22 per cent. At least a billion dollars will be pumped into the area to bring up the infrastructure to match those in the rest of the country,” he said.

“Promising oil exploration opportunities offered three areas for licensing of which one was awarded. Two wells have been dug and it is looking promising - one was shown to have commercial quantities of gas.”

The Central Bank Governor noted that while some serious challenges will have to be faced over the next couple of years all over the world, Sri Lanka has responded by ensuring that the country builds up its own spaces

 ‘The only thing you can do is to protect yourself at every opportunity and to stay afloat we worked on our debt to GDP ratios and brought it down to 79 per cent idea and the idea is to bring it down to 60 per cent and maintain macroeconomic fundamentals so that we can bring in some discipline into the economy. Our economy has a lot to offer and we invite you to be partners in that progress,” he concluded.

–Pic by Upul Abeyasekara