Sri Lanka has a good opportunity to attract Japanese car manufacturers, affected by the nuclear disaster in Japan and the floods in Thailand, to re-locate their production units here, according to a visiting business professional.
Michael Andrew, Chairman of KPMG International, made these comments when he addressed the Press Club of the Sri Lanka Press Institute (SLPI) in Colombo recently on the topic “Evolving Global Landscape, Impacts of the Financial Crisis on Emerging Markets and Growth Trends”.
According to his comments released by the SLPI (to the media that wasn’t present), he said countries of Europe have still not united to develop a cohesive plan to tackle the Eurozone crisis.
He recounted how as the Global Head of KPMG he had urged the stakeholders in the Eurozone and in the greater EU to recognize the real value of the debt on the balance sheets of their countries’ banks which had dropped dramatically in value and had reached 50 cents on the dollar at one point.
“He recounted the fierce resistance he met to this suggestion by many regulators who feared that this would lead to the bankruptcy of many banks since their balance sheets wouldn’t be able to absorb the losses,” according to the SLPI.
Commenting on the outlook for the U.S, Mr. Andrew said the US is faced with a public sector debt problem where both the federal government and state governments were spending more than they were taking in from taxes and that he felt that the political will to tackle the issue was not there and would not emerge till the 2012 presidential election was concluded.
Turning his attention to Japan he identified two major structural changes underway there. He felt that in his recent trip to Japan he saw signs of industry consolidation taking place where players were combining their resources and increasing scale to tackle changes in the global markets.
Commenting on the economic opportunities for Sri Lanka, he felt the country now possesses political stability, a strong,talented and educated workforce, and a correct focus on tourism and services and hence the opportunities were bright. However he felt Sri Lanka is in a very competitive global and regional economic landscape and there needs to be a re-education of the global investment community on the opportunities in Sri Lanka. |
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