Many centuries ago, Sri Lanka produced goods and services for our consumption and all parts and components of that economic good or service had an ecosystem within the country.

Since independence, Sri Lanka has relied heavily on the ‘big three’ for foreign exchange, namely tea, coconut, and rubber, but has failed to make itself an integrated member of the global supply chain mechanism due to poor branding and value addition. Other countries have done it successfully. There are French champagnes, Swiss chocolates, California oranges, etc.

However, the garment sector that developed in the post-liberalisation period has eclipsed others as a major player in the global apparel sector and an integrated part of the global supply chain. The apparel sector competes on price, quality, service, and delivery with the rest of the world and has won by specialising in high-value clothing. However, in terms of other products, we have not been able to catch up with the fast-growing East Asian Tiger economies.

Instead of producing all the parts and components of a complex final product, countries began to produce a small part of a large product in a complex process. The production of small parts of large complex products on a gigantic scale has greatly reduced costs, and as a result, the price of products has become reasonable.

Sri Lanka can create a label for a component rather than the final product. This is already being done in Sri Lanka. Some safety and rubber components vital to the automotive industry are manufactured in Sri Lanka. The whole world is aware that Apple computers are not made in the US and even the product itself states that it is made in China and designed in the US.

Sri Lanka can move towards building and creating more Sri Lankan brands as we evolve from our foundations, but as we would all agree, our foundations are not yet in place.

A popular strategy for transforming Sri Lanka into a production-based economy is to consider import substitution. The prevailing situation in the country provides us with an opportunity to transform Sri Lanka back into a production-based economy, but we must take the right path instead of being short-sighted as in the past. We should focus on making our inputs and outputs competitive and consider the bigger picture instead of micromanaging.