Super summit for slowness!

Monday, 27 June 2011 01:28 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Perhaps suggesting that post-war economic growth is still slow but can be driven on high gear via fast track implementation of solutions, the country’s premier private sector lobby group, the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, is giving its best shot.

Akin to a ‘now or never’ mindset, the Chamber’s Economic Summit from 4 to 5 July has commendably listed top priority and high growth sectors for discussion by an unprecedented panel of over 70 industry experts or specialists. Dynamic front-liners in the Government, Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa and Secretary to the Treasury as well as the Finance Ministry Dr. P.B. Jayasundera will be Chief Guest and Keynote speaker respectively.

The latter is likely to share the macro way forward via his presentation titled ‘Sri Lanka Beyond 2011 – The Government’s Vision, Plans and Implementation for Accelerated Growth and Development’. Given the subjects and experts who will deal with those as well as the profile and structuring of the two-day summit, attending it is a must. Views shared could also be an ideal forerunner for the Government to consider for attentive listening ahead of 2012 Budget. However, this depends on how open and frank the speakers will be and the degree of public sector participation.

Daily FT is the official print Daily for the Summit.

On the agenda are perhaps the most important economic issues under the Sri Lankan sun and the fact that some sessions have speakers with different views deliberations over two days, the effective way forward in resolution or fast track implementation should be crystal clear.

Three plenary sessions on day one will focus on ‘Attracting Investments – The Ease of Doing Business,’ ‘Financial Sector Challenges’ and ‘Growth opportunities in Tourism’. On day two there will be two plenary sessions in the morning dealing with ‘New Growth Opportunities in ICT/BPO’ and the ‘High Education and Skills Development’. Thereafter the summit offers participants options of four breakout sessions: 1) Logistics – ports, shipping and aviation; 2) Agriculture, plantations and food security; 3) Healthcare and insurance and 4) Construction.

The day ends with what is likely to be a packed plenary session titled ‘Breaking the Bottlenecks in Development’ with politically important panellists Champika Ranawaka, Rauff Hakeem, Navin Dissanayake, Sajith Premadasa, Dr. Harsha De Silva, R. Sampanthan and Vijitha Herath. The composition provides a bipartisan flavour since issues to be taken up at the summit are of national importance.