He said the economy needs national safeguards. The government’s decision to spend extra money on public sector salaries was an amateurish decision by the government. There was an influx of vehicles into the country which drained a huge chunk of foreign exchange. J R Jayewardene tried to have a blend between the open economy and managed economy. “Sri Lanka has been a welfare economy from 1931 with a 90% literacy rate and the Sri Lankan economy is not a “South Asian economy” in that sense.

Source: Sunday Observer November 10, 2018 19:18 UTC