The Asian Tiger

The Foreign Office, as we said last week, is going on its journey in the dark, and everyone else is doing part of its job while the Foreign Minister, a true defender of press freedom though, is going about his own campaign for the post of the UN Secretary General.

From our reports, the Prime Minister's working-visit to China was a useful one. The PM worked hard and business-like at the task before him, which was to woo the Chinese tourists and investors to this country. But though we can hand it to the PM for a job well done, is there a follow up and who is doing it? Leaving it to the individual investors would be futile.

Some of the businessmen who were hovering around the Premier were well-known hustlers and advisers of the previous regime. They fattened only themselves, and the country's economic growth rate was reduced to zero per cent, but that's a comment for another day.

There are pitfalls aplenty. Chinese tour operators for instance say, "how can we sell Sri Lanka tourism when there isn't even a direct Beijing-Colombo or Shanghai-Colombo flight?" To prefer Sri Lanka, a Chinese tourist has to pay more than to many other Asian destinations, and Sri Lanka's tourist promoters must not run away with the idea that Sri Lanka is the sexiest girl (or boy) on the beach.

The Prime Minister has suggested earmarking the belt between Negombo and Puttalam for tourist development, but are these plans going to be implemented by people doing business in Singapore and 'selling' Sri Lanka, just to line their pockets?

The question is, what game-plan does the Wickremesinghe Government have towards the goal of regaining Sri Lanka? The Board of Investment seems to be more than a bit top-heavy and unable to push these proposals fast enough. More importantly, there is no 'one stop shop" which has to function under the PM or an efficient technocrat Minister that can get things moving fast. As we stated, Sri Lanka's foreign policy is handled by everyone other than the Foreign Minister. Same with its policy on international trade and investment. All we see are excuses for Cabinet Ministers to fly abroad - under the pretext of meeting foreign investors - and everything ends with the publication of their mug shots in a local newspaper.

On Friday, the visiting Thai Prime Minister gave some ballast to a new wave of thinking in these parts of the world, to build an Asian Common Market, for which he used the more modern phrase "an Asian Bond Market".The plan is to utilize Asian capital to create Asian wealth instead of beefing-up the West.

As of today, if Sri Lanka is going to accept this concept, which it must, which one of its 30 Cabinet Ministers is going to handle this issue?

Sri Lanka must support this initiative and we must also think in terms of an Asian Trade and Economic Co-operation Organization (ATECO) that spreads from Afghanistan to Japan and, perhaps to Australia, depending on when that country makes up its mind if it is Asian or not..

Also needed is a Ministry for International Trade and Investment, the kind of 'one-stop-shop' - to avoid the confusion in the minds of foreign investors and traders where they must be headed if they are to do business with Sri Lanka. Perhaps Sri Lanka can offer salubrious Nuwara Eliya to headquarter ATECO, with hotels built around the golf course and the lake and light planes and helicopters ferrying in visitors. This could be telescoped into the plans the President and PM had to develop the old hill station, after their meeting in that town during the April season. These are not just pie-in-the-sky ideas, but it is clear that Asia is on the move and it was time that we took a refresher on Asian economics. The Prime Minister is on the right track - but is his team ready for it?

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