Sri Lanka will put regional trade, investment and supply-chain integration at the centre of its Economic and Investment Summit next month. Geography has always given the country a magnificent sales pitch. Turning that location into factories, exports and jobs remains the unfinished business.
Sri Lanka is preparing another major attempt to position itself inside Asia’s rapidly expanding trade and investment networks, with regional supply chains and economic corridors set to feature prominently at next month’s Sri Lanka Economic and Investment Summit.
The summit, organised by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce for October 12 and 13, will examine how Sri Lanka can strengthen its connections with Asian markets, attract investment and participate more effectively in regional value chains.
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The argument for Sri Lanka is familiar and compelling.
The country sits beside one of the world’s busiest maritime routes, immediately south of India and within reach of some of the fastest-growing economies in Asia. Colombo already possesses a significant transshipment port, Sri Lanka has comparatively strong human-development indicators and the country has spent decades describing itself as a potential gateway between East and West.
The difficulty is that geography is an advantage, not an economic policy.
Ships passing close to Sri Lanka do not automatically create Sri Lankan wealth. Neither does proximity to India guarantee investment. Companies choose locations after examining electricity prices, taxation, labour productivity, logistics, policy stability, the speed of government approvals and whether contracts and property rights can be enforced predictably.
Sri Lanka therefore competes not with its own past but with other countries seeking exactly the same factories, technology companies, logistics centres and export-oriented investment.
Vietnam understands that competition. So does Malaysia. Thailand understands it. India itself increasingly understands it.
Sri Lanka must decide whether it does too.
The country has repeatedly produced investment conferences, development plans and presentations explaining its strategic location. The more useful measurement is what happens after the delegates leave.
How many investments are actually signed? How quickly do they begin operating? How many jobs are created? How much new export revenue follows? And how many prospective investors abandon Sri Lanka somewhere between the first meeting and the final approval?
Those numbers would tell the country considerably more than another declaration that Sri Lanka is strategically located.
It undoubtedly is. The challenge is finally to make that location pay.
