SL needs a leapfrog trajectory to escape from middle income trap – PM

September, 18, 2019

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe yesterday (17) stated that Sri Lanka needs to move forward without being stagnate in the same place which many countries do when they become a middle-income country.

“We are now an upper middle income country, we have two options: we can either stagnate in the middle income trap or have a leapfrog trajectory which will make us an advance economy.”

“If we are taking a leapfrog trajectory then we have to go differently. We got to make a clean break. We cannot have an economic management system suited for a low income country,” Wickremesinghe said whilst Speaking at the Sri Lanka Economic Summit 2019, titled “Re-calibrating Sri Lanka’s Economic Trajectory: Towards 2025,” organized by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (CCC),

Government machinery has to be restructured, premier noted.

“We must have a fiscal policy that contains debt. We have to join the global value chain. We need a new outlook. So the government machinery has to be restructured. Whole thing has to be more modeled on the private sector.”

“We have to rebuild trust and that is the way to go forward,” Wickremesinghe said.