Dhananath Fernando 00:02 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. President, welcome to Advocata, Dr. Sarath Rajapatirana, Chairman of Advocata, mr. Mursaja. On behalf of Advocata Institute, I would like to warmly welcome all of you for the book launch, Policy Challenges of Globalisation in Sri Lanka, and authored by Dr. Sarath Rajapatiran, I just wanted to mention Dr. Sarath Rajapatiran is a very special person to Advocata. He volunteers his time since pretty much inception over a period of time as the chair on academic studies. Of course, he get his time gets stolen by many policymakers and his experience, but we are very grateful for Dr. Rajapatiranath for launching this book with Advocata Institute. On a in a globalised world, though in my age I have the access for ChatGPT and Perplexity. When I observing the first few rows, I still think the academic processing power is still strong than my ChatGPT, so I thought I'll speak less and just wanted to quickly brief you on the proceedings today. So when we had a conversation with Dr. Rajapatan, he said he prefers more the conversation on policy challenges of globalisation. So it will be not a traditional book launch where there will be few speeches speaking about the book. Rather, it is really discussing, interacting, engaging with all of you on globalisation. So, and thereafter we will also have time for question and answers, and after that, Dr. Rajapatinda will speak a few words about the book. And you can also buy the book online. The QR code will be displayed on the screen, and then we have some refreshments outside. That's a pretty straightforward, simple agenda that we have. But I would kindly invite all of you to interact with the conversation, and we want to have the setup in a way that the conversation and the discussion is more preferred rather than just listening to what the speakers has to say. But it will be a question and answer, and also sharing your conversation. And former President Ranil Vikram Singh will be chairing the conversation. I will be assist as a facilitator whenever to get the questions and direct it. But the key speaking will be done, or the heavy weight lifters would be former president and the author of the book, Dr. Sarath Rajapatirana. So with that, I warmly and kindly invite President Vikram Singhal to chair the discussion, and also I kindly invite our academic chair, Dr. Sarath Rajapatirano, also to join. I will also be there, but we'll start the conversation first. We have few, not a few, actually a reasonable young audience as well. While we have some seniors, so we hopefully have a quite an interactive conversation, and yeah, so that's the main proceeding. Since also we have people who have interacted with like people like Elon Musk, I think we are looking forward for a very productive conversation. President Vikram Singh, Dr. Rajabatina, please join the front row, please. Thank you. So, while I could kindly invite you to chair the meeting or the conversation, I would first like to start asking both of you, what is your reading about the globalisation on a political point of view, on an academic point of view. So then you can take the conversation forward, sir. Over to you. Speaker 1 03:48 You like to say something on the. Dr. Sarath Rajapatirana 03:50 I have no choice. Yeah. So yes. So I thought this is a very important topic for us because the work done on globalisation before was talking about the large countries, and so this is something to do with small countries in different circumstances, and we look at individual countries to bring the discussion to the ground level. Otherwise, it's been a discussion earlier among economists talking to each other, so this is a programme. The way we thought about it, also have a book that will explain what is happening and what we can expect in the future. Yeah, not so much in the future because it's very uncertain now, actually. President, Dhananath Fernando 04:45 anything that you want to say on the Speaker 1 04:47 question? Dhananath Fernando 04:48 No. What? How do you see the globalisation with the evolving global powers, and on a political sense, how do you interpret the globalisation in moving forward? It's Speaker 1 05:00 a transformation of what we call globalisation. In a way, it is a sign of success of the Washington consensus, and another way, a sign of the failure to attain some other objectives. I mean, globalise globalisation is nothing new. The exchange of trade ideas-you go back without globalisation, we won't be here. For instance, I give a good example long ago when the whole Ganges civilization developed, then trade developed. But what happened? Because at that time the Hinduism at that time didn't allow to cross the seas. Yeah. And then the Buddha came and said, "You can cross the seas, and it went all the way up to China. So we are all here. Anyone who argues with me on globalisation, I say, if that is so, we we should give up Buddhism and go go to whatever it is. No, but this is something else now. After the from a unipolar world, it was looked at, and it was a way of which we'll have winners and losers, and hopefully the winners were all going to be the West. One result of that is the EU. EU came together because the Washington Consensus. Now, what has happened is, unfortunately, the winners are elsewhere, and there are too many losers in the West. Factories are being hollowed out, but then they should have followed up. Now, China, knowing that their population come down to 800 billion, is automating their factories. These people are asking Africans to come to Europe, and now there are racial riots. So that's that's all that's happening. But what has happened now is also the rise of China, and you have got a unipolar world has become bipolar again, and in the bipolar, the manufacturing is controlled by China. Finance is controlled by America. Now, how is America to keep this? That they are worried. One is the expansion of Chinese market. Secondly, BRICS are attacking the de-dollarization, so what President Trump has done is now to attack those while to weaken the manufacturing because they are the biggest market. So they've broken all the they've broken all the rules of the game in putting different tariffs, and thereby he is trying to also negotiate, but it's also causing problems. So what he is doing the change in the rules that he could protect their financial power and then break that of China and also the other countries that are threat. So he identified the bricks. So which which means this whole thing has now come apart. But it doesn't mean that we have to give up the whole idea of a trading system which has been there for long. So how do you put it together? But you're finding now finance the your economic the finance. issues and all, and the trade issues are being replaced by two issues. That is, geopolitics and geo-economics are coming together. Dhananath Fernando 08:32 So, just just an additional question. So, when if you see President Trump's move as a attempt to weaken China's manufacturing in this level of globalisation. How do you see the success rate or failure rate of it, and what would be the repercussions for the rest of the world, and how how it would unfold? Speaker 1 08:56 I think what Trump is doing is trying to protect the dollar in the process, trying to reduce China's growth, that means to that extent, China can't take on. But I don't know because the the total markets are going to develop in our part of the world. Secondly, Chinese in manufacturing is far ahead of anyone else. You can't take them, take them on. So, if you look at it, a new scenario can emerge. It's not only China, even Japan, Korea resisting what's happening now. If they sort of further activate the RCEP, which has all of East Asia plus Australia and ASEAN. Can they then come to fix a date by which many of the agreements are over? Then within that you have ASEAN. Then within ASEAN, next to that you have the comprehensive and progressive. Specific part that the Japanese one, then Chinese have BRI, so it's a big whistling. Then what do you do? India has to have some agreement. They dropped out of RCEP, but the Americans put pressure, and now we all of us. That's why I moved to get into the RCEP. That is so it becomes big. Then, if what about the BRICS? Any case, the Middle East is tariff free, so you you you can see a big a big economic zone come out of that, and obviously you might also have a chance of having agreement with them because U.S. only controls 25% of the global economy. These people together can take on more. Dhananath Fernando 10:52 Dr. Rajbhadra, would you like to add anything more? And taking the examples from your book, given the policy challenges, how Sri Lanka should adjust, and what are the challenges we are facing, and what we should do? Dr. Sarath Rajapatirana 11:09 Actually, we are facing challenges because of the real uncertainty created by Trump, and so otherwise, the trade that we would have had without him would have been quite different from what what is happening. He is virtually interrupting what the countries that he has chosen wrongly, looking at the the trade between these two countries-that's wrong. I mean, first year undergraduate will see that this is not going to work, and so he'll have to do other things also, which in order to maintain what he's trying to do, go out of trade to other things like investment and things. So it's going to be very uncertain. That is my difficulty. Is that you know business people can't operate. They don't know what will happen next, and so I think my reading is that this will also pass. This will also go away. So it's not going to be very long term thing. That is what he's trying to do. Dhananath Fernando 12:23 Thank you, Dr. Rajputan. I think this is where I need your help. So we have a few microphones at the audience. So please join the conversation. If you have any comments, if you have any questions, please share. So then we can make it a more interactive conversation. So if you have any questions, please indicate. So, a microphone will reach out to you, and you can ask questions. Till then, President, I would also like to know now, on a political sense, because while we all work on, I mean, while you have policies for globalisation, what are the challenges do you see? Okay, academics can recommend always, but politics is a is a different way. Collecting from your story that you have said it's a it's at a time it's a tough game like rugby. It's also a game like chess. So, what are the political challenges that do you see on these globalisation challenges, Speaker 1 13:23 on the globalisation, yeah. No, now what is the next step? At the moment, virtually all countries are being bullied, but at some stage, a new combination has to come out, and we know the growth is going to be in Asia. There have been America and Asia. Europe is not is a no-go area. So for me, is the need to revive the RCEP. And if you are talking of, you are talking of international politics. If I would ask China, Japan to start moving on the RCEP, the comprehension. and progressive TPP, which UK is a member, yes, and Sri Lanka. I have already made the application for RCEP. We should go into it. India, we lost. I think now that India will finish US. They have done UK and EU. They have to then next look at certainly RC or what they are going to do. So it's a question now of some other countries taking the lead in Asia to ask for RCEP. This is what what is happening. The other worry that we have is what is the impact of the big and beautiful, big beautiful act on the American economy, global economy. We are talking of this, but there is going to be basically the adverse impact of what the Congress has passed, and what you are seeing now is. A complete disruption of trade, trade agreements which had come out 25 years now is being thrown away, and new these things are no new agreement arrangements, not even agreements have been put in place in something like eight weeks. So the disruption is such, we still don't know what the impact will be on the global economy, as it is now, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday inflation is going up in U.S. So we there's a big uncertainty and there's a big question mark over what the next phase will be. Dhananath Fernando 15:37 Any questions from the audience that or anyone would like to contribute to the conversation? Yes. Can we have a microphone to the front row, please? Speaker 2 15:45 President, you talked about China being a sort of preeminent power in manufacturing. People like Raghuram Rajan have talked about the opportunities being in the services side, and Trump seems to be completely ignoring services except with regard to some of the online taxes and so on that Europe is pushing and and Canada is. What are your thoughts about the services side? And again, you mentioned TCP/IPP. If you go to that trans that that particular trade agreement, it'll have to be very heavy on the services side, are we capable of doing that, Sri Lanka? Speaker 1 16:25 No one, Trump is ignoring services because then his case gets weak. USS ceases to be a manufacturing economy; it has now to go into services, so he he is ignoring services. That is that is the end. By now, I mean we are looking at all these. We are in Sri Lanka now, saying how much we have given contribute to the American economy, how much we have got from them. But we never add up what we are giving from Coca Cola and Pepsi. Dr. Sarath Rajapatirana 16:56 Yeah, there Speaker 1 16:58 are so many things like that on the services side, if you add, then the deficit has to be smaller. No, I think Sri Lanka has to remember whatever it is, the globalisation or the Washington concerns the concept of manufacturing, looking at the best platform for competitive value addition is gone because you now control it not by competition but by tariffs. And then what can we do? So we we ourselves have to look at moving out from moving into services, into agriculture. So those are the suggestions that have been made. Where can we make the money out of it? We can't just be here. Our problem is we have lived too long on one manufactured product, and then we. I think after that we added rubber. That that's all. That that we we we we are living in another world, not what China is living or Trump is living, so we have to come at least to one of these other worlds. Dhananath Fernando 18:06 Dr. Rajapatira, you often speak about the globalisation friendly policies and globalisation unfriendly policies. Dr. Sarath Rajapatirana 18:13 Yeah, that's a very very rough thing. I mean, you can't take it very seriously. That is the trying to see where globalisation really works is where they are already open economies, so the money can come in and can be used in the countries that are receiving money from globalisation. Some people argue saying that globalisation will hurt poor countries, particularly countries this part of the world, but other researchers show show that that is not the case, and so what happened? That's why the globalisation friendly countries are people who already been open economies, you know, and they can they can live in a world of increased globalisation, but other countries that are already restricted have it going to be a difficult thing. So therefore, it may it is not the fault of globalisation, but the people in power at that time who is going to have to face what is going to happen from increased globalisation. Of course, we have to be careful about large inflows of money coming into the country. It will upset our macroeconomic balance, and we have to be careful about that. Otherwise, my thing is that this will this will also go past. I mean, this won't be for a long time. Dhananath Fernando 19:41 Thank you. Any questions from the audience again? Yes. Can we have a microphone to the yes, Anushka? After yes, go ahead, Arusha. Speaker 3 19:50 Thank you, Dana, and congratulations, Dr. Rajapatrina. It's wonderful to see a piece of writing by you again. I have a question for the former president and one to Dr. Rajapatra. Mr. President, I think we are seeing trade and investment policies blurred the lines with national security policies and certain other policies that have nothing to do with trade and investment. For example, national security. We have Singapore, Australia, Canada introducing national security clauses into their investment policies. Now we see Trump even on the trade tariff issue hitting back at the Bolsonaro trial, saying I will introduce more tariffs if you don't lift this trial. Nothing to do with trade. So my question to you is, and maybe even Dr. Rajputner is, how do you see that playing out, where there are all these new considerations and how how Sri Lanka should think about it because these are things that will increasingly come to us as well, Dr. Rajapatra. My question to you is because in the introduction to the book you say that it's also beyond economics that you look at history, ideology, and so on. Why do you think that in Sri Lankan society we seem to have this. We are lacking this consensus, or there's an unfinished consensus around whether globalisation has worked for us or not, and whether we like it or not. Because we have these some sectors where we like it, some instances where we go away from it. So that's my question to you. Thank you, Dhananath Fernando 21:22 President. Speaker 1 21:24 You know, Trump's remarks on Gosan is such that there's such a big backlash that if the court doesn't convict him, they might even people might even go and surround the court. That's all that has happened. Yeah, that's that. I mean, you're playing. You you just because you make a statement here, it doesn't mean that politics is going to turn out that way. Now it is the try is to convict him, so he's losing his chance of a fair trial. All because President Trump went and intervened nationals. security means when you put it into your investment clause, it means you are not having Chinese coming in. Now, for Singapore, it is not a major problem because Singapore is a big investor in China, about 30 billion, and they are the one of the big guys who are driving this whole West China chunking. And what America forgets is, at the end of the day, the vast majority in Singapore is Chinese. Canada and all are doing that to keep the Chinese Chinese out, but China is coming through other areas. I mean, they they they can't invest in Canada. They will invest elsewhere in Indonesia or Malaysia or Sri Lanka or some other places. And remember, the only other option to the Suez Canal is the belt. No one else has produced anything else. You can't see Middle East, India, Middle East, Israel. One is off now, and after the bombing of Iran, that is out. So you are just taking ad hoc decisions, and Chinese are waiting and then looking at what they have to do. This is what happened now, even with the tariffs. Chinese wait for them to walk into a trap. So it is becoming they are using this as political. It's not only this. Now look at EU, when Russia went into Ukraine, what did they do? They froze all the assets of Russians and the Russian government in the European Union, and now they are talking of confiscating it. You can take all the assets, but you must be declared an enemy state. No one has declared Russia enemy state. So as a result, what happened? People are moving their money out of London into Dubai. They are frightened. They don't want to keep it in, but you have broken it. So UK has lost out by leaving the EU, and secondly, by actually by threatening to take over the assets of UK. Yeah, same with the EU. So people are moving out, but you're breaking the rules. Okay, then decline any state and take it, and no problem. But we are being asked to follow one set of rules, and they follow another. Dhananath Fernando 24:45 Dr. Rajapati, yeah, to answer you. Yes, he asked about why do you think there is unfinished conversation whether globalisation has worked or not on Sri Lanka. Since in your book you have mentioned it's also it's beyond a little bit beyond economics. Dr. Sarath Rajapatirana 24:59 Yeah. Yesterday I was very convinced when I started reading and working on it that economics itself will not be able to help us out because you need a context and the context comes from doing not only economics for history and other things that I talk about, including you know so how the system has worked for us? Economic analysis is good. I mean, we can understand the thing, but it is not necessarily sufficient. So that's why I said we should look at history, for example, very important. Provide a context in which globalisation takes place, because it's a new experience for for us living far away in a small country. It's really it's not just enough to talk about economics there because there enough that have been spoken about economics is one of very advanced things. But other things have not come in History, the context that is prepared, and some of the people who reviewed the liked the idea that I had gone out of the economic thing only. Very good economics have told me that, and so I feel quite safe saying those things. So why not, right? We should get the best possible information to make decisions, and if it means going beyond the economic constraint, so be it. Dhananath Fernando 26:34 Dr. Ajay, a quick interruption. So, in in your book, does it shed light on on Sri Lanka's context, that on the journey on globalisation, on convincing people or people embracing it, whether how do they respond to it in terms of policy and in terms of public perception? What is your reading, and has it been discussed in your book with more empirical evidence. Dr. Sarath Rajapatirana 27:02 Yeah, the book is about Sri Lanka, in the sense that we we look at Sri Lanka as an example to see what what globalisation will do to us. Now, if there are some people who say it is going to hurt poor countries like like us, and others other more thorough economists who do a lot of research find that is not the case. In our what we find in our book also, there is no such evidence to say that globalisation will be will get us in in trouble. You know we can do what we have been doing always. So good policy. What we are lacking now is good policies to increase the GDP growth rate. We have done the part of the realisation, and now we are in a more difficult world for us. How to get our economy growth rate up? Speaker 2 28:03 Can I Speaker 1 28:04 can I say one thing? Yes, I read the book. One thing I found, which struck me, was that it's only been after reading a book in Sri Lanka government. All the advisors we got starting from about Canada or from UK. Dr. Sarath Rajapatirana 28:19 Yes, at Speaker 1 28:20 that time, UK was declining without an empire. Even after they joined the EU, it was in decline. It's only Maharadacha and Keith Joseph who put it. So we also went down with them. But the East Asians and Southeast Asians, they got the American help. They got from Harvard places like that. I have met Vishwanius who was advising the Singapore, the Dutch guy. Dr. Sarath Rajapatirana 28:47 Yeah, Speaker 1 28:48 and they they they are very very sharp, and they got so they got from Harvard. We got from Sussex School of Development, and some funny creatures that come out of that. Dr. Sarath Rajapatirana 28:59 I think we have another Dhananath Fernando 29:02 question from the front row. Murtaza Jafferjee 29:06 So my question is to President Vikramma Singh. I think you are coming close to 50 years in politics. Can you, because Dr. Rajapathiranar's book is policy challenges of globalisation in Sri Lanka, and I'd like you to weigh in on the Sri Lankan context. Has politics in Sri Lanka changed with regard to the market system and embracing globalisation? Because even if you consider the current NPP government, who historically were JVP extreme leftists, that's not the way they are governing here. And do you think that there is a better context today to do these kind of reforms that we need to do? Speaker 1 29:47 Politics in Sri Lanka has not changed. All the political parties generally duck the question, and they go to elections on what you're against, not what you're for. Or as decon you said, auctioning non-existent resources. Now, at the last election, we had an agreement with the IMF, with the Official Creditors Committee, and with the bondholders, but what did you go for elections? What did the other parties say? One party said we will renegotiate this with the IMFs. Other party said we are going to make amendments to this. What are going to do? How are they going to implement that? That's also unless Sri Lanka politics change, where you can take an issue and say this is what you have to do, running on all this from '56 onward, running on negative campaigns are not going to work. So we are still going to be in the same mess. Murtaza Jafferjee 31:00 So, sir, if I was just to follow up on that, I mean, we have always had an anti-trade bias in our policy. Globalisation is trading more in people, in services, in goods. Do you still think that trade is looked at negatively in Sri Lanka in the current political context? Speaker 1 31:21 From what I can see, trade is being looked negatively. If you look at the agreements we had with India on trade, all have been not been implemented. That's the biggest market we have. Then we we we have the Singapore trade agreement, Thai trade agreement. It's not been so we have this bias against trade, partly by the private sector who don't want them to come in, so that their own spheres of profit making gets affected. Partly as a result of the thinking, especially among the left and others, it's it's surprising. Though China changed and Vietnam changed, our left parties, some of them, some of thinkers didn't change. So that's that's that. Those are the issues we have. Dhananath Fernando 32:14 So, President, in in that sense, since you mentioned our politics haven't changed, so even our politics have successfully defeated the globalisation in that sense because we really have haven't changed. Is is that what you? No, no, no. Speaker 1 32:31 We are now grappling with world is the globalisation is there. World is going, and we are getting left behind. Why is it that Vietnam, which was so far behind us in 1990, the industries minister came to Sri Lanka and asked me, as industries minister, how do we get foreign exchange? They are they are going ahead. Not only them, Cambodia is going ahead. Bangladesh is going ahead. So we are grappling with this issue. We are not getting anywhere now. We now we have this main issue of how to deal with the U.S. We are still grappling with it. We have got 30 percent. You can't survive with 30 percent. They are going to ask for less. I hope they succeed, But otherwise, now you have to realise one thing: you are never told the U.S. U.S. is a member of the OCC, and U.S. has signed on to the EFF and their time limits, which means they must help us now in that game, they they also have to. Otherwise, they are in breach of they are in breach of the agreement. They are preventing all the from us to repay the repay the bondholders, and we must now tell the IMF tell the bondholders to go to US and collect the money. We just going and say we'll buy cocaola from you or we'll buy gas from you. Okay, you are in breach of this. Dr. Sarath Rajapatirana 34:10 But can I? Yes, Dr. I don't think the economic policies are going to change very much because they have no understanding from I to see from far away and looking at history to change the colour of what they are going to do. It's they did a good job at the beginning, but about creating growth is will not be available to them unless they are prepared to do things that we have talked about for a long time as economists, I don't see that. I saw somebody I can't remember his name saying, "But we are going to apportion this party to do this, this thing. Other party do some other thing. That's totally against the intransitive that we know. That who are the people who are going to make public cell? Are they the ones who are going to make decision what to produce, what not to produce? That is, that's going to be disastrous if they actually do it. Dhananath Fernando 35:09 More questions from the audience? Yes, I'll come to you and then I'll go to Dr. Roshan. Yes, go ahead, Professor Samaritan. Now, I Speaker 2 35:18 think Dr. Sarath Rajapatirana 35:18 the effort Speaker 2 35:19 here is to Speaker 2 35:21 understand that the Sri Lankan public has to be their attitudes have to change. I think you're writing the book partly for that. You're saying we have to talk about history, we have to go beyond economics and so on. Now our president, former president, has been talking about Antara Ganga, Durha, and various things. Has I don't see that as having made a big impact. That discussion of history I learnt about it from him, but has it made an impact on our public? My question is that's the first part. The second part is has this economic crisis educated our people in some fashion, about economics and globalisation, much more than words and opinion influences have. That this particular incident has educated them. That's, I think, mr. President, you've been in this business for a long time, so I think you know how whether it has changed. You be able to compare, Dhananath Fernando 36:25 Dr. Ajwatiram. Dr. Roshan 36:26 Can I just add? Dhananath Fernando 36:28 Yes, please, Dr. Roshan. Dr. Roshan 36:30 Basically, in India, if you look at the Indian context, they had this massive crisis in 1991, and they've never gone back. And actually, because people still have that memory of what it was like pre 1991. So it's kind of the same. Following up on what Rohan said, have we learned from it, or are we going to learn in the future? So that that's one question. The other one is President McCrossinga, you talked about you know different countries like China, Vietnam, how they have completely changed the economic model. Is an authoritarian government necessary for that kind of change? And do democracies fail democratically? Like democracies fail in in creating that change? Do we need to have kind of more authoritarian government. Speaker 1 37:23 No, no, I'm not talking about authoritarian government. It's your mindset. You must know in many countries their policies are fixed. They may deform the margins, otherwise on personalities, but not here. But remember this matter. I'll tell you, keeping this aside, why did we get into the mess? Keeping aside the two deficits which she has written on, we came to an arrangement with the IMF that will have a surplus in the primary budget. For that, we had to increase the VAT. I think from eight to 1515, Dr. Sarath Rajapatirana 38:06 yeah, Speaker 1 38:07 15. So we went along that, and then what happened? The private sector said you must reduce the VAT. Private sector, and they were joined by the Vyatt Maga. I refused. I said you can't. So they went to Vyat Maga and all. They agreed. Went to mr. Gota, their Rajapaksa, who agreed to reduce it. That was our politics. He won. Within two months, he reduced it, and then within two years, we were out on queues, trying to get a can of diesel. So this this is this is what what what happened, and what happened in this series. I said a lot of people suffered. They suffered a lot, and they thought the system has failed them. That was one campaign that was run. It was very very confused state, but it's not only high electorate. Remember, the British, where democracy started, Parliament or this thing, they thought by getting out of the EU they'll have a better future. Now they are going down, so there are many countries like that at different times. The electorate, even if you look at U.S. now, the last election was one on negative issues. Yeah, is that President Trump in 2022 was very unpopular after the June January six, they were investigating him. In midterm, the Republicans couldn't win, and then all of a sudden he becomes so. This this is a part of today's politics. Maybe because it is driven more by the what you hold in your hand and not by what you read in the papers. What you hear in the on the TV or what you see on the TV or here on the radio, the whole politics have changed, and then it's what what you have here that counts. Dhananath Fernando 40:11 Dr. Rajban, do you want to respond to Professor Samarajiva's question on people's Dr. Sarath Rajapatirana 40:18 honest answers? I don't know. We have write another book, say 10 years from now, to see what has happened. We don't have, we don't know. But from what I see, what they are not doing doesn't look as if they are going to play, go back to the thing that we are talking about, liberalising trade and these the things that to me the way I seen it that worked for us. So without it actually we can't go very much forward. Dhananath Fernando 40:52 I will open up for more questions, but I I want to touch upon a point that you made on the negotiations with the tariffs. I think I heard it for the first time that already Americans have agreed on OCC. I mean, we knew, but in in this context, with your experience, do you think, President, it's a good way on entering on these negotiations? I mean, President Trump is basically violating all the rules, as you said, like all the trade agreements which has been coming for years and years. Do you still think, since we have interacted and you've since you have a temperature test on interacting with these policymakers, do you think it could have been actually something that we should have told them, or Speaker 1 41:33 I think we should have taken it up? We haven't. We are looking at how to buy gas and all. Okay, let's let's wish them all the luck. But I would have started my trading at my negotiation at that time, which will have been one of the points. You you are in the OCC. You have you have you have all agreed to this, and you are now telling me don't send these things. Then how am I going to repeat? I will certainly work with you to increase it. I also admit it. Why? But you're not. I'm not. You're not like some other countries. You're part of the OCC. Then that's that's where you should start. Dhananath Fernando 42:16 Any more questions from the audience? Okay. Till we yes, we have one question at this corner. Yes. Yes, Dr. Viroport. Speaker 4 42:28 First of all, congratulations to Dr. Rajpatiranah. I'm also very pleased to have the opportunity to read more of your work. I have a question to both former president and Dr. Rajpatiranda, I mean, when we look at globalisation, whether you know we're talking about current, what is happening now, but what prompted Americans, 52% of that population, to vote for a change? Because even before elections, you could see that you know, President Donald Trump was going to take a more sort of a protectionist view on the U.S. economy. The the manufacturing sector, the blue collar workers were losing jobs to what they perceived to be cheaper imports from China. Even to some extent, the U.K. decision to move out of EU is also a response to some of you know pressures for de-link from regional integration in in so. So it's not only a story that's unique to us here. So in terms of the policy context, I think what we have always found it very difficult is I mean technocrats can sit around and and and say yes, globalisation is good for these these. But how do we convince the vast majority of our voters to go along with that? And and what are the sort of benefits that can be showcased to those who do lose out? I mean, there are losers of globalisation. So in in in terms of Sri Lanka, also as we go from this crisis and and a new government, a new approach, how can we bring 51 plus percent of the population along with us? And again, I would ask the former president also what would be the specific proposals to put on the table to to tackle that issue, because we go back and forth largely because populations are not convinced that this is delivering what they want. I mean, day-to-day improvements in in in their living standards, Dr. Ajbadi want to. But mostly the Dr. Sarath Rajapatirana 44:47 politics is sort of bed and what a question here. People are saying when election, what are they giving us all this? That is the thing. Not where there is a good democracy or people are. No, what can we get? I mean, very good, sensible people ask this question. So we go back to Lee Kuan Yew's definition of unexisting, non-existing resources. What is that game? But actually, I don't see whether This government is going to or is capable of putting it out and saying this is what work, this is what we shall do. The first 100 days and what they have done with the with the rest has been good. So let's hope that they they get the idea to really follow economic reforms that are needed, and to somebody to explain what the reforms are, how it will benefit them. Nobody has done that to date to date. Dhananath Fernando 45:53 President, you want to respond? How do we convince a vast majority while there may be losers in the in in in globalisation? How politics should respond, and how should we convince them? Speaker 1 46:07 Well, first question was on U.S. I think the Democrat Biden failed. In my view, I met him in 2023. I had known him earlier. You could see he was in decline, and no, no one talked of getting ready for the post-manufacturing age. China has done that. Don't have multi-party democracy. No, no, no one there talked of it. A lot of people are getting affected. So Trump capitalised on that. Sri Lanka people suffered. So one was they blamed the existing politicians for it, on on both sides that worked to the advantage of the in in in PP. Secondly, people the other sides didn't give answers. They were giving promises. We'll redo it. We added about a million people onto the tax tax net that are left out. So all of them didn't go work happily to go and vote, and they were promised now. And the threshold of this has been raised, but how how are you getting the funds? You are not getting the funds. You are compressing your expenditure, so that itself is affecting the workings of the economy. Then the other one they couldn't answer was that they were only dealing with corruption. When I signed the EFF, corruption was a big issue, and I agreed first to I said that we need a new anti-corruption act, and Minister Vijayadasaraja Paks are drafting it. So he brought that. It's under this that all of them are now functioning, not any any any other. Secondly, I didn't stop any cases that had been filed earlier when we were in government. Thirdly, I allowed a minister in the government to be arrested. First time in Sri Lankan history, and then we got I got the governance diagnostic done by the IMF that has still to be implemented. That's all. But we we have all the cases of some poor public servants. I don't know the guys when when the country was in a crisis and when the political leaders were running away, and our democracy could even break down, today we are hammering. Only the public servants are there. I know many of them didn't agree with me and say they did not vote for me, but they worked. If they did not work, we would not have been able to have pulled this country through, or all I had were the public servants. No, no, no one else. So when I see what is going on, okay, some certainly all those who are guilty of corruption, you should. But I feel some of them are from what I read. There be a question mark or some of the others. Now, if you are not going to protect your public servants, how are you going to run the country? We won't have economy very soon. Dhananath Fernando 49:32 Any more questions? But till we get more questions, I want to ask. Since you mentioned about some of the work that you did during your two years period at at office, one sub one area that is closer to us is state-owned enterprises, which Advocata Institute and our team has worked. Did you lose enthusiasm on reforming it towards the latter part, if I may ask? Because that was one, and of course, my chairman was in in the. In the committee, while it's part of globalisation and opening for investment, in two years we could not do any. I mean, there were governance structures, and agree that there was holding company recommended at the IMF governance report. Did you get scared that because of the elections that you had to slow it down, or whether there was vested interest. I'll ask it very soon. The Speaker 1 50:24 soy reforms are there. First year we were not focusing on we had to get the growth going, and then of course there was a committee, and the members of the committee insisted that they follow all the proper steps. You know that. I used to push them, but they said no. We we don't want questions coming up later, and for us to be locked up. So they they followed all the thing. Everything was ready to go, and there were in fact by the time we came to about July or so, there were offers. But at that stage, I said elections is coming. Don't go and make a go and have a transaction. They'll say that someone benefited, so leave it. Otherwise, it could have been finished off by end of December. No, it was to follow the proper path, and there were many discussions with them. There has never been a delay. But okay, if this is what they, if they even the IMF said follow what the committee says, so it it takes time because you have to go through everything. There were so many things missing. The committee wanted to get all the papers together, that alone takes you a fairly long time. Dhananath Fernando 51:33 Any questions? I have few more. I think there is a young audience. Do you have any questions on globalisation on challenges? Okay. Yes. Speaker 5 51:44 Hello, Dr. Rajapal. Question for you. I think at least that one big factor with regards to our attitude towards globalisation as a country is that people see this sense of disparity between industries when it comes to the income of globalisation. Export-led industries or services-they kind of do far better than lower-skilled labor-led industries. So, do you think, with regards to solving this issue, social cushioning policies are the way to go, whereas like human capital investments or training, targeted transfers, things like that are the way to go, or is there another way to tackle this issue? Dr. Sarath Rajapatirana 52:25 Whether there is globalisation or not, people have to leave. We had to the government have to provide, you know, for example, at the begin at the end of the last programme that we had people having great difficulties, you know, getting milk, food setting in queues, and all that. So, avoiding that is the first thing we can do, right? The thing is that also we have to learn, relearn to use markets. The markets are good. Not there are some exceptions, but that if we follow those things that we have passed in the past, we'll be okay. They don't have very special interventions into the system to to help people. I mean, at that time of the crisis, we it it was not so much economics that we talked about. That we have to save the people first. Speaker 1 53:29 Yeah, I always say tell the people on the crisis. Of course, I must thank Advocata and him. We had discussed it before I even became prime minister. We Dr. Sarath Rajapatirana 53:38 spent COVID Speaker 1 53:38 discussing it. I think I came to office also. What to do? So what had to be done? I think we met Mutosa. What had to be done could be left to them, and then they had to come back with details. We were ready for that. We had a group. I just put them in with the senior officials like the governor and city author, and then it just kept rolling along here. Anushka was there, three, four of them. We knew what we were going to do, so we had no problem on that, and they had to come back. How old are you? Speaker 5 54:13 I'm 20. Speaker 1 54:14 20. Dr. Sarath Rajapatirana 54:15 Yeah. Speaker 1 54:16 Where do you stay? Speaker 5 54:17 I live in Colombo. I'm working with avocado right now. But Speaker 1 54:21 avocata, you have electricity there. Speaker 5 54:23 Yeah. Speaker 1 54:23 You have water there. Speaker 5 54:24 Yeah. Speaker 1 54:25 You know, when we came to power in 1977, how much of the country had electricity? 10 percent or 15. Dr. Sarath Rajapatirana 54:32 Yeah, very little. Very little. Yeah. Speaker 1 54:35 I was lucky. I lived down 15. Every house had a telephone. Yeah. But in most places in my constituency, the village didn't have a telephone. Dr. Sarath Rajapatirana 54:43 Yeah, Speaker 1 54:43 had villagers without telephones. You cut what the seats. How many houses had proper roofs? Karity, one of those who worked on it. We opened out the. We got tourists. We send people out. Today, how many? The country didn't have phones. Now we have more phones than anything else. Some, some of you carry two or three. You speak to one girlfriend on one end. You speak to the other girlfriend on the other. That is that. That is what happened. You know, these three wheelers we brought in the corrupt politicians brought in the three wheelers. We have them complaining, Dr. Sarath Rajapatirana 55:28 and now they are complaining. And they are Speaker 1 55:30 complaining. The guys are running the three wheelers. They are complaining. The vehicles that came in. I remember in the youth council, he opened a class to train people to repair air conditioners in cars because until then, no, there were no air conditioners in cars. So that is how this country changed, and that's because you opened out the economy. And if we had gone fast, we could have done. We can do far more. We didn't. Dhananath Fernando 56:00 So on on on on that note, President. Now in globalisation and also opening up, I think Professor Samaritjev also touched upon it. There are few phases. Do you think like when we opened up in 1977, the rest of it wasn't like the labour side reforms. It wasn't really the ecosystem wasn't supporting enough to get the growth because we opened up early, but now we are falling behind, and the rest is Speaker 1 56:26 labour system. Was there two zones were the best? We didn't go to change the labour law much. We had the two were the best. You see, it's a question of you must have labour laws. You can't be you can't be changing the labour laws. People want the labour laws changed, bosses, but then they must bring all the money abroad back also. So it it runs both ways. The labour laws it's not there. You you you see how it it ran. Dhananath Fernando 57:00 But he still is giving Speaker 1 57:01 people inspiration and telling them to go. Once you give them the opportunity to make money, they will go ahead. I remember a case of one of my constituents who came to me. He had taken a housing loan from the housing ministry, and he had not been able to repay it, and he wanted time. So I asked him. I, I knew the man. I said, I have been to your place. I have not seen a new house. Said no, sir. I took the money. I got sewing machines, and I am supplying cut pieces to some company. That's how when they get, they found ways of getting money. So he wanted to. He used a soft loan from the housing ministry. People went around; they made money, good or bad. You have to allow them to do it. Dhananath Fernando 57:51 Any more questions? We have Professor Kolabage. Can we have a microphone over here? Yes. Speaker 6 58:00 Yes, I would like to congratulate Dr. Sarath Prajpatana for his book. It's a timely problem, you know, and he is focusing on policy challenges. I think in the case of Sri Lanka, it's a question of how to deal with so many problems. You know, one is Sri Lanka is caught in technology backwardness, and Sri Lanka caught in middle lower middle income country, middle income country, middle income trap, because we were elevated to middle income status way back in 1997, and we attained upper middle income status just before the COVID crisis, and later we came down again. So I think the major problem is technology backwardness. If you compare countries like South Korea, they have achieved, you know, massive technology development, and President is aware that National Science Foundation was set up for this particular purpose. But unfortunately, you know, we are handicapped in technology advancement, and we are living in a world of AI now, artificial intelligence, and this is not a question, but this is a comment. And my second comment is on macroeconomic policies. Of course, we can't talk about globalisation without focusing on macroeconomic policies, particularly exchange rate management, monetary policy, and also fiscal policy. So these these things should go in hand in hand with globalisation. So unfortunately, in Sri Lanka, exchange rate management is not very conducive to trade growth, export growth. So we we can't just focus on tariffs or trade liberalisation, but we have to you know focus on monetary policy as well, monetary policy and fiscal policy. That's my comment. This is not a question, but Speaker 2 1:00:16 do you have a question? Yeah, I have. I Dr. Sarath Rajapatirana 1:00:18 have a question. Is that I want to ask myself the question: Isn't it time for next another trade liberalisation? Aren't we in time to do another trade liberalisation? Speaker 1 1:00:33 We we had the national tariff policy we should have come into place on first of January, which had the four bands. If we had that in place, we're in a better position to negotiate with the U.S. Dhananath Fernando 1:00:47 Okay. Any more questions? We have one more question. Speaker 2 1:00:52 I was wondering whether I misheard when President Vikram Singh said we don't need changes in labour laws. I'm asking two questions there. One is Tava doesn't work. Dr. Sarath Rajapatirana 1:01:04 Yeah, not Tava. Speaker 2 1:01:05 Tava doesn't work, and we proposed in 2022 that it be replaced with an unemployment insurance fund scheme, and the other is the desperate need that we have for bankruptcy legislation, which is sort of then indirectly affects labour. Why aren't? Why couldn't we get these things done in the last two years? And and again, now I can remember trying to get this nighttime work rule changed back in 2003 or 2000 yeah 2003 when we were bringing the BPO guys in, and now finally yesterday or day before, I saw that it had been changed. I, I mean, maybe you've created the groundwork for that, and these people just implemented it. But I mean, one positive thing that I've seen in the last little while is that one saying night shifts are allowed. I'd like your comments, sir. Dhananath Fernando 1:02:00 On, on to to add to that, that's what I meant by the leave. I was planning to come for that, and also on rationalising on the leave policy. I think Murtaza went viral on TikTok suggesting to rationalise the leave policy. I mean, is there a way that you know get a better quota and you can pick, you can plan better, or like you can claim for the leaves that you haven't taken. That's what we meant, I think. On the Speaker 1 1:02:26 all that were down, but initially we had other things to focus on, and the question was not so much leave, but to get the people back into work or to give them income. But on the unemployment insurance, yes, we avoid. We was we were studying that unemployment insurance, and the other one you mentioned was what bankruptcy. No, Chapter 11 was what we wanted to bring in Chapter 11, but we just we had to do the main laws like that public that act and all those would have followed Chapter 11. Everything we need chapter 11 because if you look at this, the protest against on parat execution, some have failed. It has to go, but on chapter 11, you could have given them another chance. Some of the other areas. Dhananath Fernando 1:03:15 We have few more minutes. I also have another list of questions, but before that, are there any questions from the audience? Maybe we can come back. I want to slowly pivot back on the globalisation and on also the recent comments that you have made. So, on on opening up to the world with this new sort of global order, you have are you are you because we have also applied for BRICS. I mean, we have shown our intention to join BRICS on one side. At the same time, you have mentioned now with a bipolar world, it seems that there are regional formation is also taking place. How should we think on those two aspects? Because countries like India, they are also in BRICS, but they are also seems to be getting a better deal from the U.S. at the same time. So, countries like Sri Lanka, how should we look at in this formation in a globalised world. Speaker 1 1:04:05 First, what is available? That is India. Start off that have agreement with Bangladesh. I always said do it with the ASEAN countries, India, actually Malaysia and Indonesia waiting for it. At least China. China was also waiting for one. Once India was done, we had to do India. We had to do China. We had to do Japan because there is a deficit, which is and that's working in their favour. So we have to push the three of those these three countries to see what how to reduce the deficit. Korea, to a certain extent, has taken labour, but they are possibly. Secondly, we should be able to attract investment from those countries in here. We had discussed with the countries; they said what they can do, what should be done on the shirt, short term. But then, if you are not prepared to go out, what do you do? You bargain for the and keep try and keep the benefits you have in EU. If necessary, we should try and get a bit more from the EU now. So you have to you have to work this around. You had you have India, you have Japan, you have China to work with. Go for those, Dhananath Fernando 1:05:38 Doctor Rajapathi. Do you have any comments? Especially, I would like to touch upon on the trade negotiations front because in globalisation, trade is important. Generally, when we go through your reading, you are more advocating for a more unilateral trade negotiation on one side. How do you see? Because with the new geopolitical order, President Vikram Singh is more in the view that we have to negotiate with Japan, China, Bangladesh, but at the same time, even our advisor, Professor Athokorola, has mentioned the importance of us on one side on the unilateral trade negotiation or trade liberalisation. How do you see it on the context of globalisation and also on the challenges for Sri Lanka in a globalised world, Dr. Sarath Rajapatirana 1:06:22 actually the thing is that when you look at our history, we have done those things, and we have succeeded. So why don't we look at history and say this succeeded for a particular reason? The timing was good, but unfortunately, there were so many huge other projects taken like Mahavilli should have, of course, been done, but it sort of it veered us away from really taking the full benefits of the liberalisation, and we could not show like other countries that they succeeded. Like we talked about Chile, Chile showed liberal they liberalised the first poor developing country to develop to liberalise, and their benefits were there to see immediately. We took time because I have a point. I don't know whether you agree with. There was a tussle between the economists and the lawyers. Speaker 1 1:07:17 No, I I won't say that. But the issue was that there was a full breakdown of capital formation, and though Mahavidy led to inflation, it created capital. Everyone started going back to being contractors, subcontractors, suppliers. We put that the second one by you know by 82 we were coming out of that time. We won the election, but then we got bogged down in the war from there onwards. That was that's really from '83 onwards the war took up. Otherwise we were getting ready to open up. There are so many plans President Jawad then had, but from '83 we were just bogged down on in the war. Then of course in 2003 they offered us. We got 4 billion from the aid consortium and a billion from the MCC. We had 5 billion, but we never used it. Dr. Sarath Rajapatirana 1:08:12 Yeah, MCC very sad because free money, absolutely free money. Speaker 1 1:08:18 Yeah, free money. Then this the last time we had 600 million. We had this whole. We would have had the whole traffic control system for Colombo. They said they worked out how much of time we are going to save. I was also very this thing as to why they are trying to give us the traffic system, and then, but we said no. Then we got a high speed train from Japan. Yeah. So we said no to that. We are like Vishantar. Whatever comes, we give away. Dhananath Fernando 1:08:52 Yes, mr. Sadashi question. Murtaza Jafferjee 1:08:56 So both to Dr. Sarat Rajapakuran and President Vikram Singha, one element of globalisation is movement of people. And if you remember when the Harvard Growth Lab worked on Sri Lanka and Professor Hausman's theory about tacit knowledge that it is in brains of people, one of the things that they showed us that there is about 8% of our population outside Sri Lanka. These are not the permanent immigrants. These are the people who are born for employment, and they kind of worked out how many foreigners live in Sri Lanka, and it was like point 1% or point 2% of our population. Most global cities have lot of people born elsewhere. I was speaking at some event yesterday also, and it was a Swiss chamber, and there were certain people complaining. It's so difficult if you're a foreigner to get visas here, to stay here. They had to get yellow fever vaccines, etc. When you were in power, I think this has been flagged to you. What is the problem in liberal? Foreigners coming to Sri Lanka. Even this whole fracas about Israelis running things in Arugamba and you know the surfing place. I mean, why do we have this aversion against foreigners when we want to go to their countries? Basically, Speaker 1 1:10:16 you know, if these rules were there at that time, Arahat Mahinda wouldn't be able to come in. They said, "Don't damn, Indian and chase him out. But leaving that aside, no, we want to do the digitalization and then open out after that. We had so many, but our main focus was just get the bankruptcy over, get the agreements in, and after that, go for the rest of it. Dhananath Fernando 1:10:44 We are about to wrap up. Are there any final questions before I give? Yes, we have one more question from Anushka. Speaker 3 1:10:51 I thought then it might be interesting to ask Dr. Rajputana a question that is less on policy and more about personal and professional career. So, Dr. Rajput, for you think about how you thought about globalisation, its role in trade, what was due for the Sri Lankan economy back then when you when you were working with the World Bank and others, and when there was a different consensus around economic policies, and you compare that to how you feel now. Also, having been a presidential adviser on economic issues, now being more, perhaps more sensitive to issues beyond economics. If you were to contrast Dr. Rajapatranov of those years to what you have reflected on now in the book and policy issues around globalisation, is it the same? Are there differences? What what should we expect in the book? Dr. Sarath Rajapatirana 1:11:47 I my point there would be that I at every job that I did I learned a lot, and I learned from a lot of people around me. I was very very lucky to work with the very good economists inside the World Bank and outside, and I learned a lot from them. And then there's interest in working in small country. I worked on a lot of countries, maybe about 30 countries when I in the World Bank. I learned a lot from Indonesia for a lot of what they were doing, so so there's a. I think the learning part is the one that I will emphasise. I don't think my views have changed very much. I think same all things work because they work. So it doesn't make a difference whether where I am, you know. Yeah, but I worked for two presidents also in the bargain and learned a lot from there Dhananath Fernando 1:12:49 also. Okay, with that, Dr. Rajbhadan, any final thoughts on your book and also on you that you would like to highlight on on the challenges, the policy challenges for Sri Lanka with globalisation, and then I would also like to give the opportunity to the president to speak his final remarks. Any final thoughts, Dr. Rajapati? I'm Dr. Sarath Rajapatirana 1:13:15 going to we're going to do another book. He's the one who the name of the book is the title is going to be an uncommon history of Sri Lanka, where we can talk about things that people didn't want to talk about. Dhananath Fernando 1:13:30 Excellent. Yeah, looking very much forward for that. Dr. Sarath Rajapatirana 1:13:32 Yeah, Dhananath Fernando 1:13:33 President Vikram Singh, your final thoughts. If you were to advise the the current policymakers, especially with the with the new geopolitics that is brewing up, what would you tell them? And if you were to negotiate, because I remember you had a masterstroke geopolitical, I would say a gaming by having the Iranian presidency in Sri Lanka at the same time you you negotiated with Israelis on some foreign employment opportunities at the same time you, in a way, stood for Palestine. At the same time, you had conversation. You had a debt restructuring, which is going on with Japan in the centre, and you said even the Americans signed for it. What's the secret, or do you have any any any magic magic recipe that how we should act in these developing geopolitical tensions. Speaker 1 1:14:28 First one, what is the advice I'll give the government? Nothing because they won't take my advice. So secondly, no, we had so many issues at that time. We had to just work it out. But I think under President Jayawarden and President Premadas, even in 2001, when we were dealing with bankruptcy and the peace talks, we had to keep many things going in addition to keep ensuring you keep your majority. Parliament, so that's one thing. But I was just thinking on the future. I want to suggest to looking at what Asia, Indian, Indian Ocean is a part of geopolitics, geo-economics. So why don't we get Advocata and the cartographer, geovocata together, and do a study of what is evolving scenarios that will emerge as a result of the post Washington consensus age. Dhananath Fernando 1:15:30 While you said the government won't take any advice, it's media rumours they are following your programme. Speaker 2 1:15:37 That is true. Yeah, that Speaker 1 1:15:40 is true. Are they following the? No, are they following the full programme? Dhananath Fernando 1:15:48 We leave that, I think, for you to decide. Thank you very much, President Vikram Singh and Dr. Rajapatiranda, for joining this very interesting, engaging conversation, and thank you very much for all of you for joining this conversation. But programme is not yet over. We have Dr. Rajapatiranah. I cordially invite you to speak a few words about the book very briefly, and then we have a small token of appreciation to hand it over to President Vikram Singh, and then we can move for refreshment. Dr. Rajapatiranath, we kindly invite you to speak a very few words about the Dr. Sarath Rajapatirana 1:16:17 book. Yeah, yeah. Okay. The thing that makes me very happy and to talk about is that the people who reviewed the book with the publishers, they liked it so much. So I didn't want to believe them, and so that way it was a it was a success. But you know he's never done. There are other things. There are a lot of questions that are asked here, that that the this book cannot answer. So we have to look to the future to do what are the areas that are of interest, and to get people interested in writing and researching on those areas. And I think I was not joking when I say we should have another trade liberalisation, but explain to me, explain to people what do we mean by trade liberalisation? It's not well understood. They think that we are free bring bring everything through the the ports freely. No, it's about just allowing prices to allocate resources. Very simple idea, and if we did that, then we be far ahead of this game. Many times, when he had the chance, we didn't do it, like you know, and so we had to look forward and see that I told you the other book that is going to come in the future, an uncommon history of Sri Lanka, where we look at things that are people have not wanted to look at. For example, do we spend so much money on building a huge building that I pass every day? What is the amount of how we spent all that money? A huge building, I think the largest in the country, but I think it is more posh than the ones I have seen outside this country. So we ask these questions: How did we come there? Are we going to? What type of controls are we going to put in to give the private sector a chance to do its things? Also, you know, these all the government operation. So we have not given private sector enough room to do lot of things. For example, we had to put eight eight steps to take in order to if you want to investment in Sri Lanka, and every step is a problem, as you know, and so we have opportunity to do a lot of good things if we follow the old ways to begin it, like labour, Ashind economy, and looking at areas in which we can benefit. Let the private sector do a lot of those things, and not the government try to do. As I was very upset when I listened to somebody giving a long list of things that that that's what they are going to do. They are going to do this, that, and the other, without really saying about who is going to make those decisions. The decisions should be made by people who risk, take the risk. That's the best way to make sure that we make the right investment. So, I also want to take a chance to thank the people who helped me with this book. Actually, I nearly let them down by not going to tell the names. Three people mainly helped me. One is here today. At other two, I abroad, and so they got the book ready for the for publication. And there are many things the the publishers. Person who look at me, who looked at this book, were not economists. So many times they say, "Can you put it in a simple way? I mean, so there are lot of things that we had to answer those questions. And but I learned that that's that's a good group. The my publisher. I might go to them again. So I want to thank three of my people who help. Shahara. Shahara. Second name I forgotten. Then there is somebody here whom I saw. Yeah, and you write to a third one is Aurelia, who is in Australia. Crara is in the United States, and so they helped me a lot. I couldn't have done it without them. So that's all I had to say. Dhananath Fernando 1:21:15 Thank you very much, Dr. Rajapatiranath. Dr. Sarath Rajapatirana 1:21:17 Yeah, Dhananath Fernando 1:21:17 and congratulations on your book. And you can scan the QR code and and buy the book. It was a book targeted more the universities and academic studies, but everyone is welcome to read. And please scan the QR code and you can buy the book. Now I cordially invite Dr. Sarath Rajapatine to hand over a token of appreciation to President Ranil Vikramusingh in appreciation of joining this conversation. President. Transcribed by https://otter.ai