Although some argue that the economy has crashed for the sake of political expediency and their personal gain=, it is only a travesty of the truth. What has actually happened is that economic development had slowed down. The slow pace of economic development is a long term rather than a short term phenomenon evidenced since 2012. The rate of economic development which was 9.1 percent in 2012 had fallen to 3.5 percent in 2013 itself, said Prof. Ananda Jayawickrema of the Peradeniya University’s Economic Studies Unit.
Prof. Jayawickrema expressed this opinion at a media conference organised by the Association of University Dons for Democracy in Kandy on November 4. Prof. Jayawickrema said the economic growth rate further plummeted due to the anti-democratic Parliamentary coup engineered in October last year and it remained at 1.8 per cent at present.
“Partners of that anti-democratic Parliamentary Coup D’état were now arguing that the economy had crashed for the sake of pure political gain,” he said.
“Another factor which led to the slowing down of the economic growth rate was the Easter Sunday terrorist bomb attacks,” he added.
Prof. Upul Abeyratne and lecturers S.Baskaran and R.Ramesh were also present on the occasion.
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