Opinion

Pitfalls of export-led growth

Published

3 years ago

2023/06/22

By Prabhat Patnaik

After Sri Lanka and Pakistan, Bangladesh has become the third country in our neighbourhood to become afflicted by a serious economic crisis. It has asked for a $4.5 billion loan from the IMF, apart from $1 billion from the World Bank and $2.5-3 billion from multilateral agencies and donor nations. Though the government has put on a brave face, Bangladesh is facing a growing trade deficit, shrinking foreign exchange reserves, a rapidly depreciating currency, a record inflation and an energy crisis that has necessitated massive power cuts.

Ironically, Bangladesh was being hailed, just a few months ago, as a success story of “development”, and indeed, according to many development indicators, it had made remarkable progress. Female literacy had reportedly increased to 73 percent, infant mortality rate had become half that of Pakistan from which it had seceded in 1971, and its “Human Development Index” was higher than that of India, Pakistan and several other countries of the region. Many called it an “economic miracle” and not without some justification: a country that had been considered a “basket case” at independence, had pulled itself up quite remarkably to outperform all its neighbours, which is why the sudden emergence of economic difficulties for it has come as a big surprise to many.

As in the case of Sri Lanka, there is a tendency to blame “corruption” for the crisis; but, though corruption itself is reprehensible, this is an utterly facile explanation. More plausible is the view that the rise in international prices of a number of commodities, in the wake of the Ukraine War, has increased the import bill of Bangladesh to a point where it has simply run out of foreign exchange to pay for imports; for an import dependent country, this has created domestic shortages that have pushed up the inflation rate. And the shortage of foreign exchange, primarily dollars, also explains the depreciating exchange rate, despite the using up of foreign exchange reserves for stabilising it. The problem with this explanation, however, is that it focuses only on imports and makes no reference to Bangladesh’s reduced export earnings from garments that account for 83 percent of its total exports.

Some Bangladeshi economists have blamed the country’s monetary policy for the crisis: Bangladesh kept its interest rate unchanged for a long time instead of raising it. Had it done so, it would have been able to attract adequate private financial flows for financing its trade deficit; and in such a case the exchange rate would not have depreciated and remittances would not have dried up in expectation of such a depreciation. But this again is a superficial explanation; the problem lies much deeper, in the very nature of the strategy of export-led growth that Bangladesh, together with most other countries, has been following in the era of neo-liberalism.

The wisdom of pursuing a strategy of export-led growth has been discussed among development economists for at least half a century, ever since the so-called East Asian “miracle” started being contrasted with the comparatively sluggish growth experience of countries like India that were pursuing, in the World Bank’s language, an “inward looking” development strategy. This entire discussion, however, has missed an important element that plays a role in real life.

Among the various expenditures that constitute aggregate demand in an economy, some are autonomous while others are induced by the growth of aggregate demand itself. Exports and government expenditure are generally considered to be the two main autonomous items: consumption, for any given distribution of income, is supposed to be dependent on the level of income itself. There is no doubt an autonomous element in consumption too that is independent of income, but that becomes pronounced only in certain situations, for instance when goods hitherto unavailable to consumers suddenly become available.

The growth of demand and hence of output in an economy depends on the growth of the autonomous element of demand. And in a neo-liberal economy where being open to cross-border financial flows imposes limits on the fiscal deficit relative to GDP and also practical constraints on the government’s ability to tax the rich and stimulate demand without raising the fiscal deficit, exports become the main stimulus for growth. A neo-liberal economy in short is characterised by primary reliance upon export-led growth.

But the export-led growth strategy is not confined only to a neo-liberal setting. The government can deliberately encourage exports, rather than expanding the home market by enlarging its own expenditure, in which case we can have export-led rather than government expenditure-led growth, but with the government still being pivotal to growth; indeed, many argue that this was the case with East Asian countries.

We must distinguish between two cases among countries pursuing an export-led growth strategy: one where the countries earn systematically large current account surpluses and thereby build up their foreign exchange reserves, China being a prime example. In the case of such an economy, any adverse development in the world economic situation makes a difference only to the magnitude of the current account surplus, which affects the magnitude of accumulated foreign exchange reserves only marginally. The country therefore, can ride out such an adverse development without experiencing any crisis.

Many other countries, however, belong to the second category, where they run more or less perennial current account deficits, balance their payments through private financial inflows, and even when they build up foreign exchange reserves these are financed through borrowings, including from private financiers. India belongs to this category, as do the countries of South Asia in general, and indeed most countries of the global south.

In the case of this second group of countries, if there is a widening of the current account deficit because of some exogenous reason, whether a pandemic induced reduction in tourist earnings (as in the case of Sri Lanka), or a Ukraine War-induced increase in import prices, or a world recession-induced fall in export earnings (both of which have happened in the case of Bangladesh), its impact on the economy gets exaggerated because of the behaviour of private agents in general, and of private financiers in particular. This is because, when there is a widening of the current account deficit, and hence a greater need for private financial inflow, this very widening causes a greater financial outflow.

Private financiers expect the currency of the country that has seen a widening of its current deficit to depreciate, and hence, concerned exclusively with their own interest, take funds out of the country, thereby intensifying the foreign exchange problem for it. In fact, if things were left exclusively “to the market”, it is not clear that the country would ever reach an equilibrium in the foreign exchange market; but that is when the country approaches the IMF, and a loan from it creates expectations among private financiers that the depreciation of the exchange rate would be arrested, so that the foreign exchange market can come to some sort of an equilibrium. But the IMF demands a heavy price for giving a loan, in the form of a reduction in welfare spending, a winding down of the public distribution system, a handing over of the nation’s assets to foreigners (sometimes called “denationalisation” of assets) and so on.

It is this exaggeration of an initial shortfall in foreign exchange to a huge shortfall because of the behaviour of private finance, that occurs over an extremely brief period and pushes the country to the steely embrace of the IMF, which explains why countries suddenly go from being “miracles” to mendicants. The problem with export-led growth is precisely this: its apparent success can evaporate in a jiffy; and this happens when the pursuit of export-led growth makes the country dependent on the whims and caprices of globalised finance.

We have seen this happen in our neighbourhood, even to countries like Sri Lanka and Bangladesh which had notched up impressive human development achievements. With the world economy stagnating, and exports of several third world countries being hit by such stagnation, the list of mendicant countries is likely to grow in the coming days; and India despite its economic size and the large size of its foreign exchange reserves (though these are built up not from current account surpluses but from financial inflows) is by no means immune from it. The only saving grace in India’s case is its foodgrain self-sufficiency (though at very low levels of consumption) and external relations that would allow oil imports from countries “sanctioned” by imperialism. Even foodgrain self-sufficiency, however, would have disappeared if the Modi government’s three farm laws had been implemented; but the kisans saved the day for the country.

The idea of export-led growth had become discredited by the inter-war crisis of capitalism before it made a reappearance through neo-liberalism; with world capitalism confronting a new crisis, a change away from it is once again on the horizon.

(This article was originally published in the People’s Democracy)

https://www.networkideas.org/news-analysis/2023/06/pitfalls-of-export-led-growth/

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Opinion

The Indian Ocean as a zone of peace

Published

6 hours ago

2026/03/23

Thilina Walpola

Late Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike

Recently, we all held our breath when a conflict began to develop very close to Sri Lanka. The sinking of the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena in the Indian Ocean took place in international waters about 30 miles from Sri Lanka’s southern coast. As the whole world watched, the President and the Government of Sri Lanka were faced with a humanitarian crisis. A second Iranian ship was also in distress and needed assistance. Although Sri Lanka’s maritime history dates back to 5th

Century BCE, this type of geopolitical crisis has been very rare.

Sri Lanka considered it the moral responsibility of the country to help out those affected during this geopolitical crisis. It chose to activate its role as a custodian of the Indian Ocean. Perhaps, not many individuals are aware of Sri Lanka’s historical role in calling on the United Nations to declare the Indian Ocean a Zone of Peace. In 1971, under the leadership of the first woman prime minister of the world, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Sri Lanka, together with Tanzania brought forth a resolution to the 26th Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations to declare the Indian Ocean a “Zone of Peace.” This was done to avoid it being used by superpower rivalries to gain military control of the region. Sri Lanka’s Ambassador Shirley Amarasinghe, the President of the 31st general Assembly of the UN was responsible for working on this resolution as with others dealing with the “Law of the Sea”.

Chandra Fernando, Educational Consultant, USA)

Opinion

The shadow of a Truman moment in the Iran war

Published

4 days ago

2026/03/19

Sahan Weerasooriya

Wars often produce moments when leaders feel compelled to seek a decisive stroke that will end the conflict once and for all. History shows that such moments can generate choices that would have seemed unthinkable only months earlier. When Harry S. Truman authorised the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, the decision emerged from precisely such wartime pressures. As the conflict involving the United States, Israel and Iran intensifies today, the world must ensure that a similar moment of desperate calculation does not arise again.

The lesson of that moment in history is not that such weapons can end wars, but that once the logic of escalation begins to dominate wartime decision-making, even the most unthinkable options can enter the realm of strategic calculation. The mere possibility that such debates could arise is reason enough for policymakers everywhere to approach the present conflict with extreme caution.

As the war drags on, both Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu will face mounting pressure to produce decisive results. Wars rarely remain confined to their original scope once expectations of rapid victory begin to fade. Political leaders must demonstrate progress, military planners search for breakthroughs, and public narratives increasingly revolve around the need for a conclusive outcome. In this environment, media speculation about “exit strategies” or “off-ramps” for Washington can unintentionally increase pressure on decision-makers. Even well-intentioned commentary can shape the climate in which leaders make decisions, potentially nudging them toward harder, more dramatic actions.

Neither the United States nor Israel lacks the technological capability associated with advanced nuclear arsenals. The nuclear arsenals of advanced powers today are far more sophisticated than the devices used in 1945. While their existence is intended primarily as deterrence, prolonged wars have historically forced strategic communities to examine every available option. Even the discussion of such possibilities is deeply unsettling, yet ignoring the pressures that produce such debates can be dangerous.

For that reason, policymakers and societies on all sides must recognise the full range of choices that prolonged wars can place before leaders. For Iran’s leadership and its wider strategic community, absorbing this reality may be essential if catastrophic escalation is to be avoided. From Tehran’s perspective, the conflict may well be seen as existential. Yet history also shows that wars framed as existential struggles can generate the most dangerous strategic decisions.

The intellectual climate in Washington has also evolved. A number of influential voices in Washington now argue that the United States has become excessively risk-averse and that restoring global credibility requires a more assertive posture. Such arguments reflect a broader shift toward the language of renewed deterrence and strategic competition. Yet this very logic can make it politically harder for leaders to conclude conflicts without visible demonstrations of strength.

The outcome of this conflict will also be watched closely by other major powers. In 1945, the atomic decision was shaped not only by the desire to end a brutal war but also by the strategic message it sent to rival states observing the emergence of a new geopolitical era. Today, other significant powers will similarly draw lessons from how the United States manages both the conduct and the conclusion of this conflict.

This is why cool judgment is essential at this stage of the war. Whether the original decision to go to war was wise or ill-advised is now largely beside the point. Once a conflict has begun, the overriding priority must be to prevent escalation into something far more dangerous.

In such moments, the international system can benefit from the quiet diplomacy of actors that retain a degree of strategic autonomy. Among emerging nations, India stands out as a major emerging power in this regard. Despite its energy dependence on the Gulf and deep economic engagement with the United States, India has consistently demonstrated a capacity to maintain independent channels of communication across geopolitical divides.

This unique positioning may allow New Delhi to explore, discreetly and without public fanfare, avenues for de-escalation with Washington, Tel Aviv and Tehran alike. At moments of heightened tension in international politics, the world sometimes requires what might be called an “adult in the room”: a state capable of engaging all sides while remaining aligned exclusively with none.

If the present conflict continues to intensify, the value of such diplomacy may soon become evident. The most important lesson from 1945 is not only the destructive power of nuclear weapons but the pressures that can drive leaders toward choices that later generations struggle to comprehend. History shows that when wars reach their most desperate phases, restraint remains the only safeguard against catastrophe.

(Milinda Moragoda is a former Cabinet Minister and diplomat from Sri Lanka and founder of the Pathfinder Foundation, a strategic affairs think tank, can be contacted via email@milinda. This was published ndtv.com on 2026.03.1

by Milinda Moragoda

Opinion

Practicality of a trilingual reality in Sri Lanka

Published

4 days ago

2026/03/19

Sahan Weerasooriya

Dr. B.J.C. Perera (Dr. BJCP) in his article ‘Language: The symbolic expression of thought’ (The island 10.03.2026) delves deeper into an area that he has been exploring recently – childhood learning. In this article he writes of ‘a trilingual Sri Lanka’, reminding me of an incident I witnessed some years ago.

Two teenagers, in their mid to late teens, of Muslim ethnicity were admitted to the hospital late at night, following a road traffic accident. They had sustained multiple injuries, a few needing surgical intervention. One boy had sustained an injury (among others) that needed relatively urgent attention, but in itself was not too serious. The other had also sustained a few injuries among which one particular injury was serious and needed sorting out, but not urgently.

After the preliminary stabilisation of their injuries, I had a detailed discussion with them as to what needed to be done. Neither of them spoke Sinhala to any extent, but their English was excellent. They were attending a well-known international school in Colombo since early childhood and had no difficulty in understanding my explanation – in English. The boys were living in Colombo, while their father would travel regularly to the East (of Sri Lanka) on business. The following morning, I met the father to explain the prevailing situation; what needs to be done, urgency vs. importance, a timeline, prioritisation of treatment, possible costs, etc.

Doctor’s dilemma

The father did not speak any English and in conversation informed me that he had put both his boys into an International School (from kindergarten onwards) in order to give them an English education. The issue was that the father’s grasp of Sinhala was somewhat rudimentary and therefore I found that I could not explain the differences in seriousness vs, urgency and prioritisation issues adequately within the possible budget restrictions. This being the case and as the children understood exactly what was needed, I then asked the sons to ‘educate’ the father on the issues that were at hand. The boys spoke to their father and it was then that I realised that their grasp of Tamil was the same as their father’s grasp of Sinhala!

In the end I had to get down a translator, which in this case was a junior doctor who spoke Tamil fluently; explained to him what was needed a few times as he was not that fluent in English, certainly less than the boys, and then getting him to explain the situation to the father.

What was disturbing was having related this episode at the time to be informed that this was not in fact not an isolated occurrence. That there is a growing number of children that converse well in English, but are not so fluent in their mother tongue. Is English ‘the mother tongue’ of this ‘new generation’ of children? The sad truth is no and tragically this generation is getting deprived of ‘learning’ in its most fundamental form. For unfortunately, correct grammar and syntax accompanied with fluency do not equal to learning (through a language). It is the natural process of learning two/three languages (0 to 5 years) that Dr. BJCP refers to as being bilingual/trilingual and is the underlying concept, which is the title of Dr. BJCP’s article ‘Language: The symbolic expression of thought’.

“Introduction into society”

It is critical to understand at a very deep level the extent and process of what learning in a mother tongue entails. The mother’s voice is arguably the first voice that a newborn hears. Generally speaking, from that point onwards till the child is ‘introduced into society’ that is the voice he /she hears most. In our culture this is the Dhorata wedime mangalyaya. Till then the infant gets exposed to only the voices of the immediate /close family.

Once the infant gets exposed to ‘society’ he /she is metaphorically swimming in an ocean of language. Take for example a market. Vendors selling their wares, shouting, customers bargaining, selecting goods, asking about the quality, freshness, other families talking among themselves etc. The infant is literally learning/conceptualizing something new all the time. This learning process happens continuously starting from home, at friends/relatives’ houses, get-to-gathers, festivals, temples etc. This societal exposure plays a dominant role as the child/infant gets older. Their language skills and vocabulary increase in leaps and bounds and by around three years of age they have reached the so-called ‘language explosion’ stage. This entire process of learning that the child undergoes, happens ‘naturally and effortlessly’. This degree of exposure/ learning can only happen in Sinhala or Tamil in this country.

Second language in chilhood

Learning a second language in childhood as pointed out by Dr BJCP is a cognitive gift. In fact, what it actually does is, deepens the understanding of the first language. So, this-learning of a second language- is in no way to be discouraged. However, it is critical to be cognisant of the fact that this learning of the second language also takes place within a natural environment. In other words, the child is picking up the language on his own. As readily illustrated in Dr. BJCP’s article, the home environment where the parents and grandparents speak different languages. He or she is not being ‘forcefully taught’ a language that has no relevance outside the ‘environment in which the second language is taught’. The time period we (myself and Dr. BJCP) are discussing is the 0 to 5-year-old.

It does not matter whether it is two or three languages during this period; provided that it happens naturally. For as Dr. BJCP states in his article ‘By age five, they typically catch up in all languages…’ To express this in a different way, if the child is naturally exposed to a second /third language during this 0 to 5-year-old period, he /she will naturally pick it up. It is unavoidable. He /she will not need any help in order for this to happen. Once the child starts attending school at the age of 5 or later, then being taught a second language formally is a very different concept to what happens before the age of 5.

The tragedy is parents, not understanding this undisputed significance of ‘learning in/a mother tongue’, during the critical years of childhood-0 to 5; with all good and noble intentions forcefully introduce their child to a foreign tongue (English) that is not spoken universally (around them) i. e., It is only spoken in the kindergarten; not at home and certainly nowhere, where the parents take their children.

Attending school

Once the child starts attending school in the English medium, there is no further (or minimal) exposure to his /her mother tongue -be it Sinhala or Tamil. This results in the child losing the ability to converse in his/her original mother tongue, as was seen earlier on. In the above incident that I described at the start of this article, when I finally asked the father did he comprehend what was happening; his eyes filled with tears and I did wonder was this because of his sons’ injuries or was it because his decisions had culminated in a father and a son/s who could no longer communicate with each other in a meaningful way.

Dr BJCP goes on to state that in his opinion ‘a trilingual Sri Lanka will go a long way towards the goals and display of racial harmony, respect for different ethnic groups…’ and ‘Then it would become a utopian heaven, where all people, as just Sri Lankans can live in admirable concordant synchrony, rather than as a splintered clusters divided by ethnicity, language and culture’. Firstly, it must be admitted from the aspect of the child’s learning perspective (0 to 5 years); an environment where all three languages are spoken freely and the child will naturally pick up all three languages (a trilingual reality) does not actually exist in Sri Lanka.

However, the pleasant practical reality is that, there is absolutely no need for a trilingual Sri Lanka for this utopian heaven to be achieved. What is needed is in fact not even a bilingual Sri Lanka, but a Sri Lanka, where all the Sinhalese are taught Tamil and vice versa. Simply stated it is complete lunacy– that two ethnic communities that speak their own language, need to learn another language that is not the mother tongue of either community in order to understand one another! It is the fact that having been ruled by the British for over a hundred years, English has been so close to us, that we are unable to see this for what it is. Imagine a country like Canada that has areas where French is spoken; what happens in order to foster better harmony between the English and French speaking communities? The ‘English’, learn to speak French and the ‘French’ learn to speak English. According to the ‘bridging language theory of Sri Lanka’, this will not work and what needs to happen is both communities need to learn a third language, for example German, in order to communicate with one another!

Learning best done in mother tongue

eiterating what I said in my previous article – ‘Educational reforms: A Perspective (The Island 27.02.2026) Learning is best done in one’s mother tongue. This is a fact, not an opinion. The critical thing parents should understand and appreciate is that the best thing they can do for their child is to allow/encourage learning in his/her mother tongue.

This period from 0 to 5 years is critically important. If your child is exposed naturally to another language during this period, he /she will automatically pick it up. There is no need to ‘forcefully teach’ him /her. Orchestrating your child to learn another language, -English in this instance- between the ages of 0 to 5 at the expense of learning in his /her mother tongue is a disservice to that child.

by Dr. Sumedha S. Amarasekara