LBO founder urges:

Sri Lanka needs to get out of the middle income trap

Sri Lanka should propel itself to a high income economy by getting out of the middle income trap that would disrupt economic progress, founder publisher, LBO, Lakshman Bandaranayake told the launch of the LBO-LBR Enterprise Summit 2015 recently.

He said the country is at a critical juncture and has to get out from the middle income trap and increase productivity per worker to achieve the US$ 10,000 per capita income target by 2020. The dependents per worker ratio is on the rise.

The challenge the country faces is how best it could protect itself from disruptions that could threaten its economic future, how to build new business models to move up in the value chain, escape from the middle income trap and propel economic growth.

"The word disruption should not be taken in its negative sense. In this context it means bringing greater value to customers by bringing in a change to the way of doing business," Bandaranayake said.

The aim of the 2015 summit is to drive awareness on how technology is impacting the consumer, business and the economy in an unprecedented way and how enterprises should embrace and respond to technology driven globalisation and rapidly evolving business disruptions.

The theme of the summit is 'Sri Lanka - Technology Drives Disruption: Embrace or Face Extinction'. Eminent speakers from the USA will share their expertise during the sessions which will comprise a round-table discussion of business leaders, a session on leadership competencies for disruptive innovation, power of customer centric disruptive innovation and building disruptive business models. The summit will be held on July 14 at the Cinnamon Grand.