“We must have a Sri Lankan model. I prefer it to be agriculturally based. If you can be self-sufficient in food, then the industries will come,” he told Forbes magazine on August 28.
Economic development rather than a conventional political settlement would ensure lasting peace in the island nation, which had just emerged from a 30-year armed rebellion by the Tamil minority, the President said. “Without development, there won’t be peace; we must develop the economy,” he stressed.
Reconciliation with Tamil communities in the island’s north and east, he added, meant providing basic needs to them such as electricity, water, shelter, education. “They (the Tamils) want to start their paddy fields, go back to their farms,” he said.
REJECTS WEST’S DIM VIEW: Western institutions have a dim of Rajapaksa’s Lanka. Transparency International had placed it between India and Pakistan as one of Asia’s most corrupt economies. The World Bank measured the ease of doing business around the globe and ranked Sri Lanka 102nd out of 181 countries, knocking it for its tax regime, legal system and permit processing.
On the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom, Sri Lanka ranked 111th of 179, slammed for roadblocks to foreign investment, its financial system and opaque property laws. With scores of ministers and 10 to 15 per cent of the workforce employed by the government, Sri Lanka was one of the world’s most administered countries.
But according to Rajapaksa even during the war, the Lankan economy grew by at least six per cent each year (though the global recession was cutting that to 3.5 per cent to 4.5 per cent in 2009). Inflation is now down to 1.1 per cent, from 11 per cent four years ago, according to Central Bank figures. And he noted that per capita
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