Social Sciences
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Item The Impact of Chinese Relations on Sri Lanka's Economy.(1st International Studies Students’ Research Symposium-2017 (ISSRS 2017) ,Department of International Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Amarakoon, A.R.W.M.M.P.B.Sri Lanka, the China’s Jewel in the Heart of the Indian Ocean has forged closer relations with China during the past few years in its economic, military, and diplomatic relations. Although ancient Sri Lankan and Chinese relations were based on religious and cultural links, replicating the relations between large and lower middle economies, recently, Sri Lanka warmly welcomed the Chinese investments, trade pacts, financial assistance and Foreign Direct Investments to several economic sectors. The two countries take economic development as a priority of their national strategy, while looking for effective links which could maintain their core national interests. The bilateral economic and trade cooperation has a great potential especially after the upcoming signing of the Free Trade Area Agreement with China’s idea of creating the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. The purpose of the study is to investigate the impacts of economic relationship with China on Sri Lanka’s economy while addressing the opportunities and challenges especially in the spheres of trade and investments. Accordingly, the nature of economic relations and the ability of addressing the current economic challenges faced by Sri Lanka through the extent of the positive and negative impacts of these economic relations are subjected to further analysis. The content analysis method is used to achieve the research objectives through the use of secondary data based on the review of existing literature and analyzing them in an empirical and theoretical perspective. The impacts of Chinese relations to Sri Lanka’s economy will be systematically analyzed in both positive and negative perspectives through revenues and profits gained from exports, imports and tourism industry and also the rates of wages and labour utilization of the Chinese investment projects. The implementation of Chinese soft power strategy unveiled that these investments and financial assistance lead to future debts and higher budget deficits along with the less export revenue and high unemployment rates in local labour market. In contrast, the development of infrastructure increasing revenues in tourism industry is exemplified. Hence, this study insists the significance of having an insight on strengths, weaknesses and the influences for the current decision making process of the country in relation to the economy.Item Economic Development and National Defence in Sri Lanka(University of Kelaniya, 2005) Jayawardena, M.M.The discussion on national defence and economic growth/development goes back to the deep roots of history, despite the marginal academic interest. The accumulated studies in the literature of economics of defence show an ambiguity of the theoretical underpinning of the subject matter. But every country allocates a comparatively significant % of GDP on national defence. (Todd Sandler and Keirth Hartley 1996). Until 1970s, defence services in Sri Lanka had been almost purely ceremonial. The size of defence was merely less than 1% of GDP with the bottom line objectives. Thereafter, it has increased up to 7% in certain years (e.g.1987, 1995). The national defence in Sri Lanka holds a crucial responsibility under the prevailing conflict ridden atmosphere and the geo-political position of the island nation in the face of economic growth and development. Here, the expected contributions of national defence is hypothetically identified as ‘product, ‘equality’, ‘employment’ ‘social transformation’, ‘self esteem’ and ‘stability’.(9th conference of S/L Studies, 2003).During the study period, from 1970 to 2004, the economic growth rate has been from -1.4 to 6% per annum with an average growth rate of 4.2%. The product contribution against the increase of the size of national defence is not sufficient. Secondly, through the recruitments to the armed forces, the rural sector/underprivileged population has been benefited directly and also through trickle down effects. Therefore, the equality contribution has been positive. Similar positive contribution can also be observed with respect to the employment contribution, because defence has become one of the major effective sources of employment. Fourthly, though it is too early to comment on its positive contribution to the social transformation, there is a tendency towards a new ‘social contract’ as the extreme parties of the society have begun to moderate their views and move towards coexistence. However, with respect to the social transformation the legitimate forces are still to contribute to prevent the exploitation by the extreme elements like the LTTE. Fifthly, during the last thirty years or so the self-esteem of the nation has been severely affected mainly because of the setback in the discipline and the goal directed behaviour of both the individuals and the nation under conflict ridden atmosphere. Finally the failure to compensate the opportunity cost created by heavy defence on health, education and other infrastructure investment has negatively affected on the stability as well as the progress of the country. This has been further aggravated by the continuous inflation mainly resulted from the defence burden. The study shows firstly that the hypothesized contributions cannot be cardinally measured and secondly, that in the Sri Lankan context in particular, those hypothesized contributions are insufficient for the economic growth and development. Thus, it is important to study whether it is a problem of the identified theoretical frame or a possible inefficiency and/or other limitations of the functioning of national defence in Sri Lanka towards the set objectives.