CEO Network December Breakfast Meeting a success

The CEO Network December Breakfast Meeting was held on 19 December at the Cinnamon Lakeside’s 8 Degrees on the Lake.

This breakfast meeting which takes place half-a-dozen times a year is organised by the leading corporate training and business consultancy company in Sri Lanka, McQuire Rens & Jones together with Cinnamon Lakeside, awarded The Best Luxury hotel, in Sri Lanka by the Business Destinations Travel Awards. ART Television – the only authorised media unit to broadcast CNN in Sri Lanka – is the third partner to this event.

The voice for the day was Resident Representative for the IMF (World Bank) Sri Lanka and Maldives Dr. Koshy Mathai who enlightened the program with his delivery on ‘The Sri Lankan Economy and Future Trends’.

His 30-minute talk kept the crowd’s attention right throughout his informative delivery.  The meeting room was filled with chairmen, CEOs and directors of well-established Sri Lankan as well as multinational companies. Dr. Mathai in his presentation concluded that the Sri Lankan economy, in comparison to most of the other countries in world, is heading towards the right direction.

He pointed out that macroeconomic management and inflationary adjustments have improved in comparison to 10 years ago, noting that Sri Lanka’s new flexible policy framework of the CBSL in order to reduce shocks will result in smooth adjustments overtime and enhance investor confidence.

He also pointed out that the ‘Automatic Debt Dynamics’ is a blessing to the economy and suggested that debt should be seen in relevance to the size of the economy and not in rupee value. Applying the debt equity ratio, he justified that in the long term the deficit will gradually come down, given the steady GDP growth projections of the Government and low interest component spread over a long term.  Further, due to the shadow of economic gloom cast on the West, he suggested that Asia has become the focus of economic growth, with comparatively higher GDP growth rates and increasingly, people are talking about the Asian centurion, and a larger component of equity of the Asian economies would act as a buffer in the event crisis strikes.

On the future of Sri Lanka’s development and macroeconomic stability, Dr. Mathai pointed out that while the infrastructure development of the country is widely on the way, its overall fiscal investment has a long way to go in comparison to the region. He also suggested that as a country of a 21 million population, it should draw in larger exports and the drop of year-on-year exports on GDP is not a healthy situation.

He proposed that financial capital investment should be made stronger, in order to count the stock market contribution to GDP. Revenue collection and administration should also improve while strengthening the corporate bond markets to enable smoother inflow of capital for private companies.

Dr. Mathai stressed that investments in higher education, including technical, English and vocational skills and university education, were also considered vital for long-term growth and stability of the country.

The Cinnamon Lakeside was yet again a wonderful host providing a top class breakfast buffet on the upper deck of the boat with a great variety of Western to Sri Lankan cuisines, while the comfort and ambiance were outstanding.