VR Insights: Recent submissions
Now showing items 61-80 of 80
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Parliament should have a formula for regulating cigarettes
(Colombo: Verité Research, 2014-06)Variations in the tobacco excise tax affects Rs. 10s of billions in government revenue. Taxation and pricing have been inconsistent. This insight explains how the lack of a consistent method allows wide discretion to ... -
Reviving Exports: The Relevance of Export Finance = අපනයන ප්රවර්ධනය සඳහා අපනයන මූල්යකරණ පහසුකම්වල ඇති වැදගත්කම
(Colombo: Verité Research, 2015-09)This Insight analyses the importance of export finance as a tool to facilitate and promote exports in Sri Lanka. It identifies the bottlenecks that prevent effective use of export finance in the country and provides ... -
Trade in Services: Unearthing the devil in the details = සේවා වෙළඳ ගිවිසුම්: ‘මල්ල ලිහා බැලීම‘
(Colombo: Verité Research, 2016-04-06)In 2016, Sri Lanka began its first round of negotiations on an Economic and Technological Cooperation Agreement (ECTA) with India. This envisages liberalising trade in services. The lack of information on what was being ... -
USD 20 billion export target by 2020: Aiming to be mediocre
(Colombo: Verité Research, 2014-08)In 2014, the government set an 'ambitious' target to increase exports to USD 20 billion by 2020. The Insight argues that this target is rather mediocre and yet, even with such a low bar, it is out of Sri Lanka's reach. ... -
What caused Europe to ban the import of fish from Sri Lanka?
(Colombo: Verité Research, 2015-02)In January 2015, the European Commission banned the import of Sri Lankan fisheries products for violating guidelines on Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated fishing. This Insight suggests that the ban was triggered by the ... -
Trade in Services : Sri Lanka needs to pull up its socks = ලොව බොහෝ රටවලට අරුමයක් නොවන, අපට අරුමයක් වන සේවා වෙළඳ ගිවිසුම්
(Colombo: Verité Research, 2016-03-09)Two previous Verité Insights titled “Sri Lanka missing world’s biggest trade party and its in her backyard” & “Trade Agreements that don’t deliver the goods” published in May and June 2013 pointed out that Sri Lanka is ... -
Sri Lanka’s tea industry – too long in adolescence, it’s time to grow up
(Colombo: Verité Research, 2016-02-26)Tea sector wage negotiations periodically go into deadlock. There are political reasons for this situation, but also an overarching economic one: global tea prices have declined – as it periodically happens – and the ... -
Sri Lanka’s post war growth: Still stuck in an unsustainable strategy
(Colombo: Verité Research, 2016-01)Sri Lanka has been driving post-war growth in boom and bust cycles on the trade deficit; and fiscal measures have been used, especially spending on construction, to offset the bust cycles. This insight explains how this ... -
Exports to India – Putting the free back into the FTA
(Colombo: Verité Research, 2015-07)Sri Lanka’s history with bi-lateral trade agreements demonstrates the need for more careful negotiation. This Insight explains how the tariff benefits of the India Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement (ISFTA) have been outweighed ... -
Explaining the Mirage of GDP Growth Optimism
(Colombo: Verité Research, 2014-08)The government estimates that by 2015 per capita GDP will quadruple from what it was in 2004. But this is a mirage: real incomes will not even double in that period. The mirage is created by counting in US dollars and ... -
Are Sri Lanka’s exports to India overdependent on concessions?
(Colombo: Verité Research, 2016-05-26)Sri Lanka’s exports as a share of GDP has declined from 33% in 2000 to 13% in 2015. One of the solutions has been to diversify Sri Lanka’s markets. This is because over 50% of Sri Lanka’s exports go to the EU and the United ... -
Exchange rate management: politics trumps professionalism
(Colombo: Verité Research, 2016-01-26)Most people in a country don’t understand the intricacies of exchange rate management. Nevertheless, actions in this regard have significant implications for the economic stability, growth and overall success of the economy, ... -
Economic mismanagement is a governance problem – it needs governance solutions
(Colombo: Verité Research, 2016-05-11)Elected officials and selected bureaucrats are given a huge amount of power to act on behalf of the public – modern democracies function on this basis: that citizens hand over their power to elected representatives. But ... -
අයවැය පොරොන්දු කඩන සම්ප්රදායට අළුත් ඇමතිලා තිතක් තියයිද?
(Colombo: Verité Research, 2017-08)An analysis of past budgets reveal large deviations between budgeted allocations and actual expenditure. This shows that expectations set by the government during the budget speech are not honoured. This Insight analyses ... -
The Sri Lankan economy needs a better bureaucracy, not just a better Cabinet of Ministers
(Colombo: Verité Research, 2017-05)There are several causes to the problems facing Sri Lanka’s economy. The problem of bureaucratic inefficiency is exemplified by this case study: finding information about trade regulations is a significant barrier to ... -
Tobacco Policy: Mitigating the Influence of Vested Interests = දුම්කොළ ප්රතිපත්තිය: ඇල්මැති පාර්ශ්වයන්ගේ බලපෑම අවම කිරීම
(Colombo: Verité Research, 2018-07)Sri Lanka is a signatory to the International Treaty, Framework Convention on Tobacco Control since 2003. It has not yet implemented the provisions relating to protecting tobacco policy from vested interests. This Insight ... -
The Hidden Side of Cigarette Pricing
(Colombo: Verité Research, 2018-07)This insight examines how analysis of past tax and price data reveals two aspects of cigarette pricing that are hidden from media reporting. First, net-of-tax price grew at a faster rate than the tax per cigarette; second, ... -
Who is Responsible for ‘Alternative Facts’ on Cigarette Taxation?
(Colombo: Verité Research, 2017-07)There are three false claims that have been prevalent in print media, in relation to the tax and price increases of cigarettes in the last quarter of 2016. The claims were that (i) tax revenue reduced, (ii) beedi ... -
Sri Lanka’s Economic Competitiveness: A Microcosm of its Politics?
(Colombo: Verité Research, 2018-03)The Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), ranks the competitiveness of economies. The GCI score is calculated using two types of indicators: objective (or measurable) indicators and sentiment (or subjective) indicators. ... -
The new Ministers of Finance: Will their budget keep its promises?
(Colombo: Verité Research, 2017-08)An analysis of past budgets revel large deviations between budgeted allocations and actual expenditure. This shows that expectations set by the government during the budget speech are not honoured. This Insight analyses ...