On 5th December, Dr. Ganeshan Wignaraja, Senior Research Associate, ODI Global was the guest speaker for an online conversation with Prof. Abhay Pethe, Senior Fellow, PIC and Senior Research Fellow, Mumbai School of Economics on the topic, ‘Lessons from Sri Lanka’s Debt and Economic Crisis. The event was moderated by Ms. Shilpa Phadke, member, PIC.
Dr. Ganeshan gave a detailed presentation on the Sri Lankan debt and economic crisis explaining the causes of this major economic crisis. The discussion addressed a number of issues such as the gravity of the debt crisis, rise of unemployment, GDP contraction, the linear rise in inflation, missed bond payments and the geopolitical flux caused by the Russia-Ukraine war, China’s interests in Sri Lanka and India-Sri Lanka relations
The dominance and subsequent ouster of the dynastic politics of the Mahinda Rajpaksha family; the appointment of Ranil Wickremasinghe as the 6th PM of Sri Lanka and the initiatives and strategies to deal with the debt and economic crisis were discussed at length.
The session saw a lively Q&A from the audience.
This lecture was open only to PIC members and was not recorded at the request of the speaker.
