‘Research and development makes Lanka a knowledge hub
Charumini de Silva
To make Sri Lanka a knowledge hub, it is necessary to produce
knowledge in a much practical and effective manner LIRNEasia CEO, Dr.
Rohan Samarajiva said. Speaking at a forum held recently organized by
the Pathfinder Institution, he said to create a knowledge hub requires
encouragement of research and development.
The total number of vessel arrivals to Sri Lanka during the past
year has increased rapidly. The fast developments in the
upcoming ports throughout the island will enhance the number of
ship arrivals in the near future. Container handling at Colombo
port at its peak now. Picture by Saliya Rupasinghe |
Dr. Rohan Samarajiva |
Therefore, private firms and universities have to play a vital role
where the knowledge is produced by creative people in innovative
organizations.
“Production of knowledge requires creative people. They must be
attracted from all over the world and local experts should be encouraged
and facilitated to become creative knowledge workers”.
A hub is not simply an agglomeration of companies that produce
knowledge, but these companies must be well connected to each other as
well as to other hubs in a global knowledge network.
Dr Samarajiva said according to the Kearney BPO ranking of last year,
Sri Lanka has been ranked as the 16th while India takes the lead of
becoming first. Philippines have been ranked as seventh.
Although Sri Lanka is ranked in the top 20 countries, the country
still has many aspects which needs more improvement.
Sri Lanka should focus more on improving the skills of the people in
the BPO sector as they need to compete with a large market like India.
The skills has to be enhanced widely. Even if Sri Lanka is on par with
financial attractiveness and business environment the country has still
not fulfilled the gap of skillful people and availability of it, Dr.
Samarajiva said.
To meet these challenges, we should expand the training centres and
make our education system more practical where the pupils get a chance
of applying them rather than learning as a theory only.
Sri Lanka has the prospects of becoming the hub port of the South
Asian region. A hub is more than a collection of submarine and
terrestrial fiber-optic cables, though they are necessary.
The number of vessel transits has grown from 14.28 percent to 18.03
percent during the period of 2004 to 2008.
The total number of vessel arrivals to Sri Lanka during the past
years has increased rapidly. With the developments in the upcoming ports
throughout the island will enhance the number of ship arrivals in the
near future.
However, Sri Lanka still gets below 5,000 vessel arrivals per annum.
We only get 30 percent of the vessels, which come to India.
Therefore, it is important to build a hub status and have a close
connectivity between other countries,” he said. |