Sri Lanka will hire US-based McKinsey and Company, a management consultancy to help set up a Malaysia style unit monitor and carry out government program aimed “accelerated economic transformation.”
Sri Lanka is to bring in a law called Development (Special Provisions) Bill for integrated and accelerated development across the country and restructuring and transformation of the economy.
The cabinet of ministers had approved a proposal to hire McKinsey for three months for 2.3 million dollars to help train and set up a program management unit.
Global experts including Peter Ho, former Head of Civil Service in Singapore and Nika Gilauri, Former Prime Minister and Finance Minister of Georgia could be tapped.
It will be styled similar to the Central Program Management Unit (CPMU) styled after Malaysia. No mention was made about transforming the goverment.
Malaysia is has nationalist leaning, where state intervention in the economy is still heavy.
Especially after the East Asian crisis, countries like Korea, which became liberal, have moved gradually away from state interventions allowing citizens to take the country to another level.
After falling from 12,000 to 8,000 dollars in 1998, Korea’s per capita income has grown by 20,000 dollars to 28,000 dollars in 2014, according to data from the International Monetary Fund.
Hong Kong, which has no state intervention at all has a per capita GDP of 38,000 dollars by 2013. Growth has slowed after the handover to China, when its ‘positive non-intervention’ economic policy was claimed to have been diluted.
In contrast Malaysia’s per capita GDP fell from 4,600 to 3,200 in 1997 and has grown by about 6000 dollars to 10,000 US dollars.
Maldives, which only has an estimated per capita GDP of about 8,000 US dollars, with only high end tourism promoted by a strong currency.