Development of rural areas is the key to Sri Lanka's success, World Bank report says

Development in the provinces away from the economically leading Western Province and improvement in infrastructure connecting it to those lagging provinces are the key ingredients for Sri Lanka's economic progress, a recently released World Bank report said.

The report, titled "Sri Lanka: Reshaping Economic Geography, Connecting People to Prosperity" and released Monday said while the economic development of the capital Colombo and Western Province is impressive, it still has a long way to grow when compared with the neighboring cities such as Mumbai, Delhi and Bangkok in the region.
While poverty has come down in all provinces and education, basic healthcare, and basic infrastructure including water and sanitation are dispersed throughout the country, to take advantage of the opportunity presented by those improvements to achieve prosperity, Sri Lanka needs to connect more people with those developments, the report recommends.
According to the report, the main development that needs to be achieved is to improve the transportation infrastructure between the leading Western Province and the densely populated Central, Sabaragamuwa, and Southern provinces and other lagging areas.
The report points out that transport costs in Sri Lanka are high by international standards when compared to other countries. It costs $2.90 per kilometer to move products in Sri Lanka more than twice the $1.25 in the United States, it says. Bumpy roads add to the cost of transport, it adds.
By improving infrastructure links between the major cities and the rural areas, producers will be able to specialize and produce at a larger scale, the World Bank points out.
The report also suggests target interventions in selected lagging areas, especially in the conflict-affected areas of Northern and Eastern Provinces, to improve economic conditions.
The global monetary organization suggests relaxing strict land-development ordinances that regulate the use and transfer of land keeping a larger proportion of people in those provinces dependent on agriculture which makes them poorer because they earn less for their labor.
Relaxing ordinances is likely to raise agricultural incomes and accelerate poverty reduction and longer term economic transformation in an area that was divided until recently, the report points out.
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