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Item Ready-made Garment Exports from Sri Lanka(Routledge, 2009) Kelegama, SamanWith the phasing out of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA), the Sri Lankan economy, highly dependent on ready-made garment exports, has become vulnerable to the changing global trading system affecting this industry. In such a global environment, strengthening the competitiveness of the industry has become imperative for Sri Lanka if it is to remain as one of the suppliers of choice in major markets. The paper highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the industry and shows the steps that have been taken to address the latter. Additional steps taken to select specific garment products according to past performance and global positioning for further improvement and promotion are also highlighted. The paper also suggests some strategies to cope up with the new global challenges.Item Does Leadership Matter in the Economic Reform Process? Liberalization and Governance in Sri Lanka, 1989-1993(Elsevier, 1997) Dunham, David; Kelegama, SamanGovernance assumptions of the East Asian miracle may not be a sufficient or a necessary condition for effective economic reform or for solid growth to emerge in other Asian economies. This paper argues that in Sri Lanka, where the state is not strong, where it is not well coordinated, and is neither cohesive nor disciplined in organizational terms, strong political leadership proved critical in the second wave of reform from 1989-93 - even if it was essentially illiberal in the process of implementation. Technical and political imperatives are seen to be interrelated and parts of a single reform package.Item Labour Absorption in Industries: Some Observations from the Sri Lankan Experience(1992) Kelegama, Saman; Wignaraja, GaneshanEleven years have passed since liberalization began in Sri Lanka, and yet the level of unemployment remains at about the same level as in mid-1977. Even if the export industries take time to respond to policy reforms, the fact that unemployment increased to pre-1977 levels by 1985 clearly shows that export-oriented industrialization has not been able to generate employment on a large scale. Why has this been the case? This paper attempts to answer this question by examining the labour-absorptive capacity of manufacturing and how it has changed after liberalization.Item External Shocks and Domestic Policy Adjustment: The Case of Sri Lanka(The Indian Institute of the Economics, 1994) White, Howard; Kelegama, SamanA major methodological problem in the analysis of adjustment policies is the separation of the effects of the policies themselves from those changing external conditions. But such a separation can be clearly made by decomposing the sources of change in the current account. In this paper authors apply methodology, with a number of important modifications to the experience of Sri Lanka for the period 1971 to 1991. By extending the decomposition analysis to cover the capital account authors are able to address a further important issue in the adjustment debate: namely distinguishing the impact of external finance given to support domestic policy adjustment efforts from that of the efforts themselves.Item Ready-Made Garment Industry in Sri Lanka: Preparing to Face the Global Challenges(2005) Kelegama, SamanWith the phasing out of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA), the Sri Lankan economy, highly dependent on garment exports, has become vulnerable to the changing scenario affecting this industry in the global trading system. In such a global environment, strengthening the competitiveness of the garment industry has become a sine qua non for Sri Lanka to remain one of the suppliers of choice in her major markets. The industry therefore needs to articulate new response mechanisms to address the emerging challenges. A realistic course of action should involve addressing the major constraints in both the supply and demand sides of the industry. This paper highlights these issues and suggests some strategies for coping with the new global challenges.Item Stabilization and Adjustment: A Second Look at the Sri Lankan Experience, 1977–93(John Wiley, 1997) Dunham, David; Kelegama, SamanMainstream thinking on economic policy assumes a logical progression from stabilization to liberalization and adjustment that is rarely attainable in practice. Most developing countries have been forced to undertake them simultaneously with a resulting tension between them, and with conflicting demands being made on economic policy. This paper reexamines Sri Lankan economic performance in the 1980s from this perspective. It argues that the pristine application of theory is not an appropriate yardstick and that “economic mismanagement” is at best an incomplete explanation of what was happening. It contends that incompatible demands were at the time being made on economic policy, and stresses the importance of external shocks and the political sustainability of the reform process.Item Sri Lankan Exports to India: Impact of Free Trade Agreement(Sameeksha, 2003) kelegama, SamanSince the Indo-Sri Lanka Bilateral Trade Agreement came into existence in March 2000, Sri Lankan export to India has registered a sharp increase. A disaggregated analysis shows however an unevenness which indicates the need for smoothening the trade process and regulations.Item Transforming Conflict with an Economic Dividend: The Sri Lankan Experience(2005) Kelegama, SamanPeace can generate an economic dividend, which can be further increased by appropriate economic reform. This dividend can in turn be used to raise popular support for conflict-resolution measures along the road to achieving a final political settlement, a strategy that characterizes the recent period in Sri Lanka. However, despite an increase in economic growth following the cessation of hostilities between the LTTE and the government, no substantial dividend has materialized for either government supporters in the South or LTTE supporters in the war-torn Northeast. The causes of this failure include delays in disbursing aid which would have eased adjustment to economic reforms—resulting in cuts to public spending that affected Southern households—and weak institutions that impeded the effective use of aid in the Northeast. The Sri Lankan experience highlights some important lessons for both government and donors on making use of an economic lever for consolidating a peace process and conflict resolution. It also highlights some of the dangers in relying too much on economic levers to consolidate a peace process when levels of mistrust are high.Item Privatization and the Public Exchequer: Some Observations from the Sri Lankan Experience(United Nations ESCAP, 1997) White, Howard; Kelegama, SamanThis paper examines the Sri Lankan experience with privatization from 1989 to 1996 and argues that its short-run fiscal benefits have not been significant even when the direct and indirect costs of privatization are ignored. Fiscal gains from privatization should be considered long-term benefits and greater importance should be given to designing a transparent privatization programme to promote competition and to stimulate the capital market. Such a strategy can address the problem of the fiscal burden of subsidizing State-owned enterprises more effectively than a privatization programme that is designed for speedy execution in a non-transparent manner or one whose objective is to achieve revenue targets according to short-term budgetary needs.Item The Economic Cost of the War in Sri Lanka(2001) Arunatilake, Nisha; Jayasuriya, Sisira; Kelegama, SamanThis paper discusses some of the conceptual and methodological problems associated with assessing the economic costs of civil wars and other violent social conflicts, and presents an evaluation of the costs of the (still ongoing) conflict in Sri Lanka. Our estimates suggest that the costs of conflict since 1983 may be at least equivalent to twice Sri Lanka's 1996 GDP.