51st APO Governing Body Meeting
20−22 April 2009, Colombo, Sri Lanka
Keynote Address
By
Ratnasiri Wickremanayake
Prime Minister of Sri Lanka
Hon. Minister; Secretary-General of APO;
Distinguished visitors;
Ladies and Gentlemen:
It is my pleasure to address this 51st session of the Asian Productivity Organization and I am particularly pleased that my country has been selected as the venue for this international gathering. In understood that seventy delegates and their advisors and observers from 19 Member Countries are present here today. Sri Lanka, I am happy to say, has been a member of this body since 1966. This current meeting is being held at a critical time, when the world is facing an economic downturn. It is apt that this theme for this year’s meeting is “Productivity and the global financial crisis.” I have no doubt that this forum will provide the necessary directions and a strategy for the productivity movement, to help member countries to effectively deal with the current global financial turmoil.
Today the world is going through the worst economic crisis since the great depression of the 1930s. World renowned economists have related the crisis to a number of reasons, such as: the formation of an asset bubble in the US and its subsequent collapse; continued excessive consumption in the US; irresponsible lending and borrowing; non-recognition of risks; debt default; regulatory inaction; and some policy weaknesses. All this has contributed to a productivity slow down.
Although global attention at present is focused on the West, in this respect, the crisis and its fallout will have a severe effect on the economies of the developing countries as well. The Gross National Product of the United States, we are told, fell by 31 to 47 per cent in the last quarter of 2008. The effect of this was significantly felt in Asian countries too due to the loss of jobs and reduction in consumer spending. The Western crisis has been transmitting itself to the developing countries.
There is also a big drop in funds flowing to developing countries, according to available statistics. Also, Foreign Direct Investment Flows have fallen by 21 per cent last year, according to UNCTAD data. Even in trade, developing countries are affected in many ways. The Asian Region’s exports to the US and Europe have dropped sharply as consumers in those countries have curtailed their spending. With the fall of the export markets many factories in Asian Countries have been forced to halt production, leading to retrenchment and the loss of jobs. We have felt these effects here in Sri Lanka too, though not to severely.
At this meeting of the Asian Productivity Organization, we need to jointly discuss effective ways and means of recovering from the turmoil. Since almost all the rich countries are involved in this crisis, we will need to look for new markets in other areas of the world. At this crucial time, a new outlook, innovation and productivity improvements are believed to be the key areas of focus that would eventually facilitate the recovery process. We also need to inspire our working communities to be more production oriented and improve their creative skills too in order to find new ways and means to enhance competitiveness of our products and services globally.
Although the world is in crisis, there are certain factors we can be positive about. There is now a trend in the global economy for re-balancing towards Asia; in the long run this trend will affect the World’s financial markets profoundly.
As the Asian Economies grow larger, we will see the continued development of regional and domestic capital markets. We need to learn from the failures and successes in the West, and we could introduce our own reforms where needed. And this we should not delay.
We in Sri Lanka are fortunate that we have not been too badly affected by the crisis in the West, because of our sound economic and social policies. But we have had to face a debilitating scourge of terrorism by a group of our own countrymen misguided by a demented fanatic hallucinating about a separate state of which he would be the dictator. He has been leading what has been described internationally as the World’s most ruthless terrorist outfit.
I am happy to be able to tell you today that this menace is now behind us. Our armed forced were successful in reducing the terrorists, earlier thought to be invincible, to a ragged and pitiful bunch hiding behind a human shield of non-combatant civilians on a sliver of land up in the North of our country.
Sri Lanka today can look forward to a future free of terrorism.
I welcome you all on behalf of the Government and people of Sri Lanka.
Thank you.
