when they are not employable, you force them to get the governmentjob, they organise themselves. applause. ..they organise themselves an unemployed graduate union, they want to fix the public sector, public sector is bloated. so these are challenges, but this is not a time to point fingers at each other. all of us have to be blamed on this. because 1971, the price in 1988 90 uprising, all have contributed to this. nobody is free, none of them are. they are trying to say that they re a paragon of virtue. no, that s not the case! they are also responsible, my party is also responsible, all the parties are responsible for what we have today, 75 years. it is the moment of truth. we all must be honest to admit that and deal with it. applause. harini. i think that s a really callous response to the situation i that we are in right now. people are not getting - on the streets because they choose to get on the streets. they re getting on the streets because there are actual - problems. i thin
as president. but how does this relate to the question that was asked by talal about how you can reduce the bloated size of the public sector? exactly. it has to be sorry, harini, please, go ahead. you re being very polite with each other now. laughs. no, we are polite. she s my colleague! the public sector certainly. we.our position is the public sector needs to be strengthened strengthened doesn t mean expansion or bloating, - and if you look at why - the public sector has been bloated and if you look- at in which sectors it s been bloated, it s in areas, - in resources where it s people who are really unproductive, who ve been chucked - into the public sector. there are lots of vacancies in areas that actually needj to be filled. i ve got to bring dushni, you ve got to break up this bilateral at the side here. dushni, your response? i mean, ithink sri lanka has a public sector that s far too large. there is no dispute about that. the reason why it s grown in size is also polit
your question, please. so, my question to you is what are your thoughts on which countries sri lanka should look at aligning themselves economically in order to stem the cost of living crisis, given sri lanka s current precarious financial predicament, as well as for future growth and sustainability? dushni, you kick off on that one. i think if you look at long term economic interests, my sense as an economist is that we are better aligned to the asian region because asia has been identified as a centre of growth for the next two to three decades. most of our investment is coming from asia, most of the technology transfer is coming from asia, most of our imports are coming from asia, our exports are of course headed to the west. but we need to diversify our export base, find new markets, and i think for us, finding new markets will also be mostly
to the question that was asked by talal about how you can reduce the bloated size of the public sector? exactly. it has to be sorry, harini, please, go ahead. you re being very polite with each other now. laughs. no, we are polite. she s my colleague! the public sector certainly. iwe.our position is the publicl sector needs to be strengthened strengthened doesn t mean expansion or bloating, - and if you look at why - the public sector has been bloated and if you look- at in which sectors it s been bloated, it s in areas, - in resources where it s people who are really unproductive, who ve been chucked - into the public sector. there are lots of vacancies in areas that actually needj to be filled. i ve got to bring dushni, you ve got to break up this bilateral at the side here. dushni, your response? i mean, ithink sri lanka has a public sector that s far too large. there is no dispute about that. the reason why it s grown in size is also political because each government that com
in the asian region. all right. so that s my short answer. short answer there. very quick answer to that one. i mean, china, india, japan big countries that give a lot of money to sri lanka. i agree with dushni because we need to work with everybody, but then asia, this is the century of asia for at least the next two, three decades, so we have to work with them. india is growing, you have to partner with them, integrate with them, and have that opportunity to use it. so as far as china is concerned, we need to look at it, how to export more than now we are importing. very quickly on china, harini maybe you could address this. a lot of people are unhappy about the fact that china builds these infrastructure projects, but at hugely inflated costs, and then there s this debt that s built up and they buy the family jewels, like the port. well, i think that s part- of the earlier issue we spoke about of corruption. yeah. but actually, the biggest. problem with indebtedness is not rea