$3 Billion Tourism City In Katana (Proposed)
Where the fuck is Katana? Here, above. It’s inland from Negombo. What’s going on there? “Sri Lanka’s state investment promotion agency said it had inked a deal with a Singapore led consortium to build a 3 billion US dollar tourism city in Katana, north of the capital Colombo” (LBO).
OK. So who is this consortium? Asian Resorts And Casinos Pte. Ltd. Who are they? Well, I checked their site and they seem to have only concept projects, nothing built yet. They designed their logo in an online contest about 9 months ago, for $120. Checked their business records in Singapore and they were formerly known as EIGHTH WONDER SINGAPORE PTE. LTD. As such they bid on (see video) a similar project on Singapore’s Sentosa island (and lost). Since then they’ve had a name change and so that’s the ‘Singapore led consortium’.
As far as I can tell it’s a new company with no particular assets or projects under its belt, but I guess anyone with contacts can leverage up $3 billion these days. For reference, that’s about 1/3rd the cost of the Large Hadron Collider. Also, as a note, I have real difficulty not spelling that Hardon Collider.
However, for 3 billion couldn’t we, say, build high speed rail from the airport to actually cool parts of Sri Lanka, instead of build artificial entertainment in Katana? The main sell, of course, seems to be casinos, which would have a market, but still. Sri Lanka is not lacking in natural awesome. We don’t really need to tie up with artificial companies to turn Katana into some provincial Macau.
Mohsin Hamid, author of How To Get Filthy Rich In Rising Asia, has a nice 
I’m happy to be featured in Echelon magazine’s 40 Under 40 feature, profiling young people who contribute to the economy in some way, mainly in business but also in terms of innovation and thought leadership. It’s an interesting article not just in that I’m in it (mainly for work on indi.ca and 
I won’t add too much commentary, but just read I guess. The youngest Rajapaksa, Rohitha (Chi Chi) has given an amazing interview to the 
In 2009 this strange character appeared on the Sri Lankan Internet scene, getting angry, flaming, trolling whatever. Then he started naming anonymous bloggers, posting comments as people’s kids, nasty stuff, for which I removed him from 
Serving Tourists in NOT the way to develop a country. We have to start manufacturing things. Even after starting the manufacturing in 1977, we are STILL at the 1st level, i.e. assembly type manufacturing, mainly garments. 2nd stage is light manufacturing like scooters, bicycles, electrical equipment like fans, irons etc. , 3rd stage of industrialization is heavy manufacturing like iron works, and shipbuilding, final stage (4th) is electronics and high-tech manufacturing. We don’t have any skills for shipbuilding and iron works. At least must try to go into light manufacturing. But who is going to give money, who is going to do R&D??? So, we want to make an iron and market it to the world? Who is going to pump initial cash, who is gong to the R&D??? I think we are in a big mess. People don’t realize the hole we have dug for ourselves. We just cannot move from assembly type manufacturing. Our fate is sealed.
The economy is already more than 50% services (though not all are advanced services). Look at all the fast-growing countries; and you will see advanced services driving growth. The fixation of manufacturing is so 195os. It’s obsolete everywhere, but in particular in countries like Sri Lanka where the market is too small to exploit the economies of scale. R&D is good, but why think it’s limited to manufacturing? This is not say manufacturing is bad. Just that there is no reason to privilege it over the other sectors.
I can think of only Financial Services, like Singapore. What other advance services can we offer??
Only way to make money is to make Sri Lanka a Financial Center (like Singapore). We have missed the bus here. Singapore, HK has taken over that role now. How can we do it??
Can you give examples of these fast-growing countries who are making big bucks with advanced services?
Here we are talking about making Billions of $. Not millions of but BILLIONS. With a 20 Million population, to increase per capita GDP by 1000 $, we have to make a whopping $20 Billion. To make this out of “services” requires a HIGHLY SKILLED workforce. Where is the workforce?? Remember what happened to the CPC hedging deal? We have to have financial “experts” and gurus to do that. I just can’t see that happening with our rotten to the core education system.
Our present GDP per capita is a paltry 2,375 $ (for 2010 World bank figure). To be “developed” you HAVE TO become a high-income country. i.e. according to World Bank classification, 2011 GNI per capita should $12,476 or above.
I made some calculations. This World Bank threshold for high-income countries grow at rate of around 4% per year. So, say in, 30 years, the threshold will be around $40,465.
Now, just imaging the situ: For us to improve our GNI per capita from $2,240 to $40,465. in 30 years, we will have to grow every year at a whopping 10%.
So, I think Sri Lanka becoming a high-income developed country is only a pipe-dream.
We are in a MIDDLE INCOME trap now. We are middle income country and will remain like this for another 20, 30 years. Problem is, after some time (according to experts), if you don’t improve and become a high-income country, everything will fall down like a deck of cards and you WILL go back to a low-income country.
I can see this happening around 2045, 2050.
DISASTER!!!!!
Please see how Singapore and Mauritius have become rich. Please see the trajectory of Dubai (which does not have oil). Did the Maldives become the richest S Asian country through manufacturing?
Even today there are two service industries among Sri Lanka’s top-five export earners. Colombo’s Port and Airport are major service suppliers to the region, with 70% of containers in the port being transshipped and over 1 in 5 passengers at the airport being transit passengers. These are service exports.
The admission of inability to think of any advanced services other than financial is sad in this day and age. A simple Google search may assist.
I am sorry, but you can provide only 1 example, Mauritius???
Singapore and Dubai don’t count. Singapore become a high-income rich developed country in the 80s. Dubai’s economy was built on the back of the oil industry in the 70s. Only after making money and making the economy stable through oil and gas did it tern to other services. Also the population of Dubai (Emirati) is only about 400,000. Very small. Smaller the population, easy to manager and everything else. Also you have to make much less to to increase your per capita income.
According to Wiki, the advanced services of Mauritius is is financial and banking. There is no other type.
One other very important thing about Mauritius is that it’s population is just 1.2 Million. Managing 1.2 million should be practically much more easier than an economy of 20+ Million.
Manufacturing is the backbone of a good economy. Not only the economy, it is important in many aspects. A country having a good manufacturing base is a strong country.
Maldives doesnt need manufacturing nor does it have the capability. It is a small country with 300,000 people. Maintaining a good set of resorts itself can make them super rich. After all highest contribution to their GDP is not from tourism its from remittances from their expatriates. Maldives is not a strong country it is dependant on their neighbours for its own defence requirements. Are we really going to get inspiration from Maldives? we have a large agri based rural sector unlike Maldives or even singapore.
Impaler, your philosophy sounds very JVP-like. They too go on about how a country has to “produce” stuff to progress.
How come anybody speaking infavor of manufacturing become JVP like? Manufacturing is considereded extremely important in countries like Japan. Even the current economic growth in India is partly a result of its manufacturing base. Even Singapore has a better manufacturing base than SL does. Nearly 25% of the GDP contribution is from manufacturing.
also they are into manufacturing of engineering materials, chemicals and petroleum products.
“Petroleum and petrochemicals is another base of Singapore’s industrial and economic life. Singapore has the third largest oil refinery in the world, behind Rotterdam and Houston. The Singapore Petroleum Company (SPC) is a leading player in the petroleum industry and is engaged in exploration, production, refining and distribution. Remarkably, despite not having a single drop of proven oil reserves in the country, Singapore is a net exporter of oil – exporting 1.374 million barrels of oil/day and importing 1.195 million barrels/day. This makes Singapore the 18th largest exporter of oil in the world.”
Do u know that our oil refinery is not modernised for long time and we have converted a possible profit center into a cost center? Do u know that we burn tons of Sulphur daily that we get during petroleum refinery without utilizing it to produce materials like sulphuric acid? The amount of sulphuric production is an indicator of the wealth of a country. Even the authorities can provide diesel and petrol at a cheaper price than now if we use better and effecient modern refinery technology.
Ours is a country surrounded by sea yet how many caustic manufacturing plants we have? hambanthota with its weather, low population density and unhabitated land area is ideal for manufacturing yet do we spend on that. Since we have a port now in Hambanthota, creating a manufacturing zone there is really good. But we are building stadiums all over the country which does not help revenue generation at all.
It’s not manufacturing or services. It’s services as the driver, pulling along manufacturing and agriculture.
Lot of people have trouble grasping what services are. In Sri Lanka growing tea is agriculture. What is done to the tea in factories is manufacturing. From time it gets loaded on a lorry to Colombo it’s services.
For statistical reporting purposes we classify apparel as manufacturing. When we take a piece of cloth to a tailor and the tailor gives us a suit, it’s clear that he has provided us a service, not engaged in manufacturing. But when we scale up that same act to millions of items of clothing, we call it manufacturing.
Sri Lanka can and should do manufacturing, but for it to be competitive, one has to think in terms of a market larger than the 20 million people living here (equal to the population of greater Mumbai, but with less buying power). That necessarily involves a major services component. So for example, I have proposed that we either locate an efficient refinery in Hambantota or a nuclear plant in Mannar: http://www.lbo.lk/fullstory.php?nid=621824335. This will necessarily involve a good service infrastructure. That is what Singapore has.
for all those people stuck in the rat race
and to those people that preach for a more efficient rat race.
1.
an unlisted private company in the US prints pictures of dead presidents with the number “1″ on it followed by as many zeroes as they wish on rectangular pieces of paper.
2.
said paper is loaned out with interest to nations and commercial banks who lend it out to us.
3.
requiring more paper to be paid back with than whats given to us, to service the debt.
which the said printing business has a monopoly over.
which results in quite literally in slavery of the human race.
ie. that reason why colonialism decided to call it quits. cos they found a better way to screw the human race
THE RESULT ?
the world and its nations, parents and their children put their blood, sweat, life’s work and tears to get the said worthless piece of paper.
from the schooling system (john taylor gatto ?), thats set out to make kids into robots that work to service the debt.
………to
wars being fought for the said piece of paper and thousands of lives lost (iraq and iran trying to base oil trades in gold ? , max keiser ?)
“Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes her laws.”
Mayer Amschel Rothschild
solution.
convert to Islam
do not deal with interest
and love not money
for as the famous no body said. money is the carrot at the end of the treadmill
“convert to Islam
do not deal with interest
and love not money
for as the famous no body said. money is the carrot at the end of the treadmill” ?
This is plain silly. Inflation high? Invest in anything other than cash!! This includes bank deposits.
The edifice is not coming down. Islamic finance is interesting but only as a reform to the existing edifice which is fast reforming. Nevertheless there remains a huge problem in the existence of moral hazard.
The concept of interest in Islam is based on an incorrect understanding of money. Aristotle made the same mistake.
Money today is not the same as money tomorrow or next year or in five years time. This is termed the time value of money and the differential is interest.
http://www.monetary.org/a-brief-history-of-interest/2010/12
The military, “tourism” and building white elephants- money to be made by the Rajapaksas so logic does not apply. Hell in a hand basket and all that…
It would be interesting to find out who’s behind this flaky deal. Interesting, but I bet it won’t be a huge surprise!!
I have my doubts whether this project will actually go ahead because a lot of things have been promised with much fanfare but we’re still waiting for the outcome. I really doubt that 3 billion dollars is going to be invested here. Much likely a smaller amount will be invested but casinos have done Singapore a lot of good in the money/tourism department. Wonder what the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka which has its “home” in these parts will have to say about it.
It looks like a front company, somebody trying to get a deal and flip it elsewhere?
I heard that this project was given to someone else and when nothing happened later given to these guys but not very sure. (I may be confused as to which project they were referring to)
“Nuclear Power Plan” in SRI LANKA???????????????????????????????????????????????????
FORGET IT. How can we handle Nuclear Power plants when we cannot even handle simple things, like managing sewage and dengue.
Only way to get electricity in Sri Lanka is to build COAL power plants. No other way.
Singapore was heavy into manufacturing in the 60s and 70s. That is why it was called a NIC (Newly Industrialized Country) in the 70s. i.e. GDP is composed of about 41% manufacturing, 39% services and 20% agriculture. To be a NIC, according to what I thing, manufacturing should contribute more than services for the GDP. Thailand is a good example of this. In Thailand from 2000-2010 Manufacturing contributed about 41% to the total GDP, services about 40%.
So these are NICs. i.e. countries who are much better than “developing countries” but still have not reached fully developed status.
Singapore is now a developed 1st world country. Now in Singapore services provide biggest contribution to GDP. These are called post industrial cases.
Sri Lanka tried to achieve NIC status (by 2000) in 1992. But we failed miserably. Malaysia is considered a NIC. But Malaysians are also struggling. They just cannot make the jump from middle income to high income. It is very difficult. Because you CANNOT become a high income country by using cheap labor to manufacture stuff. That is only 1st and 2nd stages of industrialization. You have to innovate and create products and market it to the world. Best example is South Korea. LG, Kia, and Hyundai they created from scratch.
Sri Lanka does not have any talent, education system or management skills to create LGs or Hyuandais. I think our only realistic goal is light manufacturing. Even that is pretty difficult. I don’t think we have skill sets or people or management to create advanced services. Look at our financial sector. Just look at a local bank, be it private or public. Service is pathetic.
Also, Sri Lankans have bad mentality. WE don’t have any true leaders nor we good followers. Sri Lankans (this is true for the entire sub-continent) are very bad when it comes to keeping their differences aside and working for the common good. We all want to be in the limelight and be leaders. There is definitely some sort of genetic problem here.
Australia drops travel warning for northern Sri Lanka
July 31, 2012 – 3:21PM
http://tinyurl.com/cpmrcwf