Sri Lanka’s Department of Census and Statistics (DCS) is the primary government agency responsible for collecting data, producing useful statistics, and disseminating it.
In 2014 a data dissemination policy was introduced by the Department of Census and Statistics (DCS) in Sri Lanka. The DCS is the primary agency responsible for the collection, compilation and dissemination of official statistics.
ජාත්‍යන්තර වෙළඳ දත්ත පොදු දේපලකි. සැබෑ කරුණු මත පදනම් වූ ප්‍රතිපත්ති සැලසුම් කිරීමට, ව්‍යාපාරවලට වඩාත් නිවැරදි තීරණ ගැනීමට, ආර්ථික හා සමාජීය කරුණු පිළිබඳ මහජන පර්යේෂණ සඳහා පෙළඹවීමට සහ ජනතාවට රජයේ වගවීම වැඩි දියුණු කිරීමට දත්ත සඳහා ප්‍රවේශය අත්‍යවශ්‍ය වේ. එහෙත්, ශ්‍රී ලංකා රේගුවේ දත්ත බෙදා හැරීමේ ප්‍රතිපත්තිය දත්ත පොදු භාණ්ඩ ලෙස දැකීමට පටහැනි ආකාරයෙන් සකස් වී ඇත. කලාපීය හා ගෝලීය ප්‍රවණතාව වන්නේ මෙම දත්ත වලට ඇති ප්‍රවේශය පහසු කිරීම වුව ද, ලංකාව සම්බන්ධයෙන් යාවත්කාලීන දත්ත සොයා ගැනීම පහසු නොවන අතරම ඒවා නොමිලයේ ලබා ගත නොහැක.
International trade data is a public good. Yet, SLC’s data dissemination policy is currently at odds with seeing the trade data it collects as a public good.
Successful economies have increasingly recognised the importance of improving access to data collected by governments. Accurate, timely and easily accessible data helps private sector growth and results in improved delivery by government. Sri Lanka Customs is the key government agency that collects trade data. Access to timely trade data is vital for firms engaging in international trade to make sound business decisions. It is also the basis on which countries should be formulating their trade policies and assessing their impact.
Sri Lanka is highly dependent on international loans from multilateral and bilateral sources to finance infrastructure development. Multilateral and bilateral borrowing is often favoured by governments such as Sri Lanka because such financing tends to have ‘concessional’ elements, relative to the international financial markets. However, this report finds that the practice of ‘tying’ loans to procurement from contractors in the lending country and resulting cost escalations can significantly erode the concessional or grant element of these loans.
Sri Lanka is highly dependent on international loans from multilateral and bilateral sources to finance infrastructure development. Multilateral and bilateral borrowing is often favoured by governments such as Sri Lanka because such financing tends to have ‘concessional’ elements, relative to the international financial markets. However, this report finds that the practice of ‘tying’ loans to procurement from contractors in the lending country and resulting cost escalations can significantly erode the concessional or grant element of these loans.
Women in the 20-39 age cohort are uniquely and severely disadvantaged in the labour market in Sri Lanka. This disadvantage is linked to the current policy of placing the full cost of maternity leave benefits (MLBs) on employers.
Ministries are the overarching bodies that house relevant government bodies such as departments and authorities in charge of a particular subject area. They are responsible for the formulation and approval of national level policies and strategies in their assigned sectors (such as health, education, and agriculture), coordinating the institutions under their purview to implement the approved policies and strategies, and monitoring and evaluating their performance. Therefore, ministries—and by extension ministers—are vital to determining the institutional effectiveness and efficiency of service delivery by the public sector.
International trade data are the foundational basis when formulating trade policies and assessing their impacts. Trade data is vital for firms engaging in international trade to make sound business decisions. Unfortunately, when compared to regional and international best practice, Sri Lanka is failing to use trade data effectively for the benefit of the country.