Increasing exports requires more than promises and committees
Exports need to be increased by 2028 to begin repaying debt. Increasing exports is a big, challenging and complex undertaking:
- The scope of economic transformation (export development) is extensive, including foreign relations, free trade agreements, foreign and domestic investment, export tariffs, business tax, business and entrepreneurship development, education and workforce skills development, port facilities, corruption and bribery and mind-set/culture change.
- It will involve numerous government departments and agencies, non-government associations, foreign governments and businesses.
- Where to start? One approach would be to establish several Commissions, Institutes and Offices with or without Boards (as per the Economic Transformation Act) and then HOPE that they will be effective.
A much better approach would be to develop a customised strategic approach that builds on:
a. Experience-proven best practices of large-scale change (transformative) initiatives.
b. What Steve Jobs (former CEO of Apple/i-phone) said: “Simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”
c. What Michael Bloomberg has to say in his book Bloomberg about leadership and teamwork – his private company’s revenue were slightly more than Sri Lanka’s exports in 2023, despite having taken “leave of absence” as CEO while he was Mayor of New York City from 2002 – 2013.
Doing so points to the need for the President to provide hands-on leadership and to establish the following three-part management structure and process focused on increasing exports.
Part 1: Establish an Export Development Team (EDT)
A team is a small group of persons who work together to achieve a desired result. The Export Development Team (EDT) should:
1. Be chaired by the President or Prime Minister; comprising members from within and outside government.
2. Be small – at most 10 persons so that members can be candid, resolve differences of opinion and keep each other accountable.
3. Organise large meetings and conferences to solicit and test ideas and communicate plans and results.
4. Have 2-3 persons to assist the Chair.
5. Be accountable to Cabinet, Parliament and all Sri Lankans.
Part 2: Develop a Strategic Action Plan (SAP)
The EDT’s first task is to develop a comprehensive SAP in consultation with stakeholders to solicit and test ideas. The SAP must include:
a. The vision
b. Strategic policies that will govern implementation
c. Short and medium term objectives and target results
d. Strategic actions and schedule to achieve (c)
e. Team members’ responsibilities for implementing (d)
f. The challenges to achieve (a) – (e)
g. Underlying assumptions regarding (a) – (f)
The development of the SAP must set aside old mindsets and biases. It will be more challenging, than increasing taxes, reducing expenditures and negotiating debt repayment.
The SAP may identify the need to establish sub-EDTs to address topics such as:
· Achieve an educated and skilled workforce.
· Establish a stable, attractive and corruption-free investment-export environment.
· Develop an entrepreneurial business and investment environment
· Identify strategic opportunities for export.
The implementation of the SAP will uncover new opportunities for diversifying and increasing exports.
Part 3: Conduct BI-MONTHLY ROBUST milestone reviews
The EDT and sub-EDTs must conduct bi-monthly milestone review meetings. Team leaders and members must:
1. Be candid – Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, said that straight talk (candor) is organisations’ biggest dirty little secret: most people would rather hide or spin the truth than share it, makingit hard for everyone to bring the reality of the situation to the surface and fix it.
2. Present progress reports.
3. Review the assumptions, lessons learned and new insights gained since the previous milestone (review) meeting.
4. Update the SAP.
5. Resolve any differences of opinion that arise during the discussion of (1) – (4).
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