China is key to Sri Lanka’s progress: survey

Friday, 18 August 2017 00:08 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Close to 72% of the respondents of an islandwide poll conducted for business magazine LMD by research firm Kantar TNS believe that China is key to Sri Lanka’s economic progress.

Survey participants point out that China ‘provides donations and credit facilities to Sri Lanka’ while also being ‘the main contributor to large-scale projects implemented here’. Only 15% disagree with this notion while the rest are unsure.

Meanwhile, according to LMD, less than half (42%) of those surveyed state that India is also key to Sri Lanka’s progress. They cite India’s ‘continuous support for Sri Lanka’ when disasters and problems occur as being one of the main reasons for this notion. However, another 40% say otherwise while the rest (18%) state they do not know. The magazine also reports that “just over a quarter of those polled feel that India can be relied on in the long term…here too a greater share (51%) of respondents point to China as the preferred choice.”

However, at least six-in-10 survey respondents feel that our India-China relations are balanced, LMD notes.Citizens point to treating India and China as equal partners, maintaining our independence, improving trade with China and India, and offering concessions to them as a means of managing Sri Lanka’s relations with the Asian superpowers.

LMD’s publisher, Media Services, says the August edition of the pioneering business magazine has been released to leading supermarkets and bookstores in Colombo and the outstations.

Its cover story features an exclusive interview with the Chairman of the Colombo Stock Exchange Ray Abeywardena, who says it is time Sri Lanka makes good on its promise to be a regional investment hub (for the full story, log on to www.LMD.lk).