[Translation from the original Sinhala speech delivered at the 105th anniversary celebration of the Communist Party of China, organised by the CGTN Sinhala Service and hosted by the Communist Party of Sri Lanka. Watch full speech. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v* C90V4qY7iGQ]

Before the MoU between the United States and Iran was signed, President Trump let slip something crucial at the G7 meeting in France. When he was asked how Iran’s enriched uranium was to be removed from the country, Trump said that the enrichment facility had been placed beneath a mountain by the Iranian government but US B2 bombers caved-in the mountain itself, burying the uranium under its rubble, making it almost impossible to retrieve. He claimed that the United States was the only country in the world which had the capacity to retrieve it, pausing momentarily and adding “and China”.

So, by President Trump’s admission, this impossible task could be handled by only two countries on the planet: the US or China.

China arrived at this point of development, not by having been a colonial power for centuries like the UK and much of Western Europe. Nor by transnational corporations extracting resources for many decades from around the world. Not by establishing over hundreds of military bases all over the globe. But today, even the US accepts that China has now reached the status of a “peer competitor”.

Some would say that China is a civilisational state, and was able to do so because of nationalism built on their ancient civilisation. But it is while this same civilisation was in place that Genghis Khan’s Mongols were able to breach the Great Wall, enter China and conquer it. It is during this same civilisation that Britain was able to use its warships’ cannons to force China to buy and consume opium (‘the Opium Wars’). Therefore, the great and rapid rise of China is not purely attributable to its ancient civilisation.

China’s economic development has eliminated absolute poverty within a short period of 40 years, for the first time in the economic history of the world and done so without a history of colonialism.

So how did China achieve this miracle and when did this happen?

The initial efforts were under the leadership of Sun Yat-Sen, who founded the Guomindang, a patriotic, modernising, progressive party. His party was supported by Lenin but the character of that party completely changed after his death. In 1926 the party was an honorary member of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, but in 1927, under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek, they collaborated with the colonial powers and foreign capitalists based in China to turn on and massacre the Communist Party of China in Shanghai and Canton.

We cannot conclude that the Guomindang party was the driver of the rise of China, because they were unable to protect China from Japan’s war of aggression against it (1937).

Mao Zedong

That task could only be achieved by the Communist Party of China (CPC) which was born in 1921, 105 years ago. Among the founders of that party was young Mao Zedong. Mao became the leader of the Communist Party during 7th Congress in Zunyi in 1935.

So how did the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) initiate and steer the rise of China to its current Great Power status?

The secret of its success can be grasped by understanding the CPC through three major periods of its history, under the leaderships respectively of Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping and Xi Jinping.

In September 1959, Mao Zedong himself explained the secret of China’s success, in an address to the Military Commission of the Central Committee of the CPC. Mao explained that if the political and military lines are correct, then you will receive all that you don’t have, such as cadre, people, weapons and eventually power. But if the political and military lines are incorrect, you will lose all that you have– cadre, the people, weapons and power.

Therefore, the secret which is revealed is that of the correct line, i.e. correct thinking; the thought process. The Chinese Communist Party has never claimed that they always had the correct line of thinking from its inception through to the present day. According to the official history of the party, there were at least 11 struggles between ‘two lines’ in the history of the party.

That’s how we know that there were struggles against Chen Du Xiu’s ‘rightist deviation’ and Li LiSan’s and Wang Ming’s ultra-left lines. The people were informed about these struggles through the published writings and speeches of Mao and other leaders throughout the history of the party. The CPC didn’t attempt to hide the line-struggles.

Mao was not only a great political leader, but also a great military leader, philosopher and poet. He taught that in order to arrive at the correct line; one has to correctly identify contradictions; distinguish between antagonistic contradictions (with the enemy) and non-antagonistic contradictions (among friends); recognise the primary and secondary contradictions; understand the main and secondary aspects of the contradiction and how the secondary becomes the primary and vice versa. It is according to this philosophical methodology that the correct line could be established.

For example, when Japan invaded China, the main enemy became this external aggressor. But when there was no external threat, the CPC taught that the main enemy was the comprador capitalists, bureaucrat capitalists and semi-colonialism. The ‘comprador capitalist’ class is the intermediary class between the imperialist power and the country; the agent of colonialism.

Mao and the CPC also recognised the role of the ‘national bourgeoisie’. This is the nationalist capitalist class that stood for a national industrialisation and the national market, and had some contradictions with colonialism. One cannot achieve a victory without distinguishing between these different factions and strata of the capitalists. One cannot embrace the comprador capitalists and/or bureaucrat-capitalists in order to develop a country. That was not the way China achieved its victories.

The Chinese Communist Party understood the contradictions correctly, and when there was an incorrect understanding of the contradictions, they fearlessly engaged in ‘line-struggles’ and ensured the correct line prevailed. It is in 1935 that the CPC under the leadership of Mao arrived at last, at the correct line. Even after that there were struggles of rectification, as in 1942.

The Countryside and the Peasantry

The great victories during Mao’s period were the victory in the struggle for national liberation by defeating Japan, and the peasant-based revolution. An important feature of Mao’s thinking was that in countries like ours, in the global south, the primary force was the rural peasantry. Without considering the rural peasantry as the main force, one cannot arrive at the correct line. This is the reason that while India is a great economic power, China has become an economic superpower. Why? Because there are no semi-feudal residues of casteism among the peasantry in China unlike in India. This is because the national liberation struggle of the CPC had as its

main force, the rural peasantry and its main arena, the countryside.

Mao Zedong recognized clearly the reality of China at the time. He said it was a semi-feudal, semi-colonized country. Why semi-colonized? Because all of China was colonized not by one colonial power but different parts of the country, especially the coastal ports and cities, were dominated by different foreign powers. This was done through China’s comprador- bureaucratic capitalist class.

Having put an end to all these challenges, the foundation for the China we see today was laid by Mao Zedong. On October 1st 1949, addressing the people at a meeting to celebrate the victory of the Chinese Revolution and the liberation of China, the first sentence he uttered was “The Chinese people have stood up!”

Deng Xiaoping

The second period was of Deng Xiaoping. During the armed people’s revolution in China, there was a huge province-wide liberated zone under Deng. The pragmatic economic policies he implemented in that province were different from the policies adopted in other liberated zones under other CPC leaders. What he had was a model of economics that enabled and provided opportunities for the rural areas and the peasantry to grow prosperous.

Decades after the Revolution Deng was expelled from power but Zhou Enlai rehabilitated him. When he assumed the CPC leadership there were three great contributions that Deng made. First, he introduced an objective historical analysis of Chairman Mao to the party and the country. He didn’t completely reject Mao the way that the Soviet Communist Party did to Stalin, nor did he say that Mao was holy and infallible. He didn’t maintain a cult of Mao but didn’t negate him.

He followed Mao method regarding Stalin. Mao said that Stalin got more things right than wrong– 70% right and 30% wrong. Deng did a similar analysis of Mao. Because of that balanced perspective China was able to move forward taking the best from the past and eliminating what was bad. This was publicized widely, not limited to secret meetings inside the party. The Central Committee Resolution passed at the Party Congress in 1981 is available as a book, which analyses the errors made in the period encompassing the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution and the rue of the ultra-left Gang of Four.

In economics, the first thing Deng did was to implement policies enabling the rural peasantry to become wealthy. The enriched peasantry in turn deposited their savings in state banks. The state then was able to invest those savings for the leap in its industrial development.

His second step was to open the coastal areas to foreign capital. In this, he was encouraged by Lee Kuan Yew, during his 1978 visit to Singapore. Lee said to him, if the Singaporeans who originated from China’s poor fishing communities can transform their economy from Third World to First, it would be not be difficult for you and your comrades from the educated Chinese elite from the cities including Beijing, to do so. Deng took this advice into account.

Xi Jinping and Globalization

The third great period in the history of China led by the CPC is the on-going period of Xi Jin Ping. There are many things one can say about this period but I will draw out just one lesson: the question of globalization. Now, in Sri Lanka as well as in many other countries, there is a leftist denunciation of globalization and an anti-globalization movement. Yet the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels recognizes and applauds globalization by capitalism and the bourgeoisie.

However, Xi Jinping offers a new perspective. He is against the inequity and unfairness of the prevailing system of globalization. He says China stands for globalization, but offers the Belt and Road project of globalization, which is very different to colonial, neocolonial and neo-liberal globalization. It is a developmental project in which China is prepared to invest in the infrastructure development of countries.

In Sri Lanka one group is opposed to globalization, but when they obtain state-power, rush to embrace it as it is in the neoliberal version! Another group is partial to neoliberal globalization but their neoliberal version of globalization disregards the protection of sovereignty, and agrees to demands of bridges and channels to neighboring big countries. People are opposed to this kind of anti-national, unpatriotic globalization. Even in Britain, people were opposed to this, hence Brexit, Britian’s exit from the European Union.

Under President Xi, a powerful, important and modern conceptual intervention has been made, offering a more balanced, more equitable world order and an alternative globalization project. It is a balanced, multipolar globalization.

In my presentation, I’ve outlined the paradigmatic thinking in these three great periods of the Communist Party of China founded 105 years ago, that drove the unique economic miracle of China and its rapid rise to ‘peer competitor’ status with the USA.

by Dr Dayan Jayatilleka

A university student at Ruhuna has died of dengue recently, yet another young life was lost while officials trot out the same tired clichés about “clean premises” and “public responsibility.” This ritualistic blameshifting has become the drunken gibberish of a health system that refuses to confront its own failure. Every death is treated as an unfortunate accident rather than the predictable outcome of chronic successive governmental paralysis.

I have lived through this nightmare personally. In Galle, two schoolchildren from the same family died some years ago, triggering public fury so intense that roads were blocked and tyres burned. I do not condone the chaos, but I understand it. When you raise children in a dengue-stricken district, fear becomes a daily companion. I mosquitoproofed my home decades before it became fashionable, drenched my children in citronella, shut windows at 4:30 p.m., and became a nuisance to my own family, but I refused to apologise for protecting them. Today my daughter, once the toddler I guarded obsessively, is a postgraduate trainee in Community Medicine after doing her bit as an MOH fighting dengue in the deep interior. I am proud beyond words.

The tragedies never stopped. I still remember the day a friend rushed his daughter to me, when I was surgeon Teaching Hospital, Karapitiya, misdiagnosed with appendicitis. She had classic dengue warning signs, headache, lymphocytic shift, early thrombocytopenia and absolutely no clinical signs on the part of the abdominal wall overlying the appendix. I referred her urgently, but inexperience elsewhere cost her life. She died in Colombo after three days in the ICU of a well-known private hospital. That was 1988. The story is unchanged.

Sri Lanka’s dengue burden has only worsened.

* 2023: over 80,000 cases and over 50 deaths.

* 2024: more than 90,000 cases, with spikes in Colombo, Gampaha, Kalutara, Kandy, and Batticaloa.

* 2026 (to date): already 53,000+ cases, with the Epidemiology Unit warning of another major surge after the monsoon.

These numbers fluctuate, but the pattern is constant: epidemics every year, preventable deaths every year, excuses every year.

The official narrative blames urbanisation, four viral serotypes, climate change, and “public negligence.” The truth is simpler and more damning: Sri Lanka has never implemented a rational, scientific, sustained dengue eradication programme. The attitude is defeatist, dispassionate, and bureaucratically comatose.

History shows what works. In the mid 20th century, Aedes aegypti was eliminated from 27 countries in the Americas through coordinated militarystyle operations. Cuba remains the modern example, dengue-free for years because of relentless, structured, repetitive vector control. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka continues to rely on punitive measures and sermonising PHIs. Punishment has never eradicated a mosquito anywhere on earth.

What we need is not rocket science it is willpower.

A National Commando-Style Operation

Sri Lanka’s 14,000+ Grama Niladhari Divisions can be systematically cleaned. Each GND is roughly 4.5 km² manageable in a single day with 200 volunteers. The plan is simple:

* Simultaneous nationwide cleanups to prevent mosquitoes escaping to neighbouring areas.(Aedes Egypti can fly up to a kilometre).

* Fumigation of heavily infested zones.

* Repetition every three weeks, initially, then quarterly.

* Central steering committees in each GND with MOHs, PHIs, local officials, and private sector partners.

* Government reimbursement for equipment.

* A declared public holiday for national mobilisation.

* Continuous public education.

* Mandatory mosquito net isolation of all suspected dengue patients to prevent mosquitoes from acquiring the virus.

If mosquito numbers fall below a critical threshold, epidemics will cease. But this requires discipline, repetition, and leadership, not sporadic “cleanup weeks” and press conferences.

Structural Failures That Must Be Confronted

A sustainable programme demands:

* Medical entomologists with proper remuneration and career pathways.

* Urban development reforms to prevent waterlogging, regulate construction sites, and eliminate breeding niches.

* Environmental management of solid waste and grey water.

* Legislation with teeth and the courage to enforce it without political interference.

* Education from Primary school on mosquito biology and environmental responsibility.

* Media involvement beyond sensational death reporting, to public education, serials, panel discussions.

* Private sector mobilisation, which successive governments have inexplicably ignored.

Sri Lankans have been conditioned to believe dengue is a natural disaster, an unavoidable curse of the tropics. It is not. It is a manmade failure of governance, planning, and political courage. No senior doctor, politician, or public figure has ever led a sustained public campaign demanding accountability. The public remains unaware even of their basic right to health.

My intention is not to incite rebellion but to arm the public with knowledge, because knowledge is power. Dengue can be eradicated. It requires a commando operation, as it were, not committee meetings.

by Dr. M. M. Janapriya

The news that Sri Lanka has once again been classified as a middle-income country is undoubtedly one of the more encouraging developments after the severe economic crisis the country has experienced over the past few years. For a nation that went through foreign exchange shortages, debt default, high inflation, fuel queues and shortages of essential goods, such international recognition naturally creates a sense of hope.

It can be seen as a positive signal that Sri Lanka’s macroeconomy is gradually moving towards a degree of stability. However, as with any important statistical achievement, there is a deeper question we must ask before celebrating too quickly.

If Sri Lanka has once again become a middle-income country, have the lives of Sri Lankans also returned to a middle-income standard of living?

To answer this question honestly, we must look beyond statistics and examine the daily realities of ordinary people.

Even today, many families struggle to manage their monthly income. Within a few days of receiving their salaries, they have to pay for food, rent, electricity, water, transport, school expenses and loan instalments. Once these obligations are met, the rest of the month is often spent under severe financial pressure. This reality shows that there is still a significant gap between Sri Lanka’s official recognition as a middle-income country and the lived experience of a middle-income life.

To understand this gap, we must first recognise that a “country” and a “society” are not the same thing.

A country is often described through economic data, financial indicators and international comparisons. A society, however, is a living collection of human experiences that cannot be measured by numbers alone. It includes not only people’s income, but also their health, education, job security, social justice, confidence in the future and ability to live with dignity.

Therefore, a “middle-income country” is an economic classification. A “middle-income society” is a qualitative condition of development. When we fail to understand this difference, our interpretation of economic news becomes too narrow.

The World Bank classifies countries mainly according to Gross National Income per capita, or GNI per capita. This indicator divides a country’s total national income by its population and provides a useful basis for comparison between countries. It is an important and widely accepted method. But it measures an average. It does not tell us how income is distributed.

That is the central problem.

A country’s income may increase, but that income may not reach all sections of society equally. The economy may grow, but the living standards of many families may remain largely unchanged. The numbers may improve, while people’s hopes continue to decline.

This is why Amartya Sen, one of the most influential thinkers in economics and development studies, defines development not merely as an increase in income, but as the expansion of people’s capabilities to live the kind of life they value. This idea is especially relevant to Sri Lanka today. Real development is not only about improving the figures in government accounts. It is also about expanding the opportunities available to ordinary citizens.

Similarly, economists such as Joseph Stiglitz have long argued that national income and Gross Domestic Product are useful indicators of economic activity, but they do not fully reflect people’s well-being, social justice or quality of life. Therefore, treating statistical success and human development as the same thing is a serious policy mistake.

Sri Lanka now stands at such a crossroads.

On the one hand, macroeconomic indicators are improving. Inflation has been brought under control. Foreign reserves have strengthened to some extent. Tourism is recovering. Exports are showing signs of progress. These are important achievements, and they must be acknowledged.

On the other hand, the household economy remains under pressure. The cost of living is high. Real wage growth is limited. Debt burdens are heavy. Many young people see migration as their main hope. Many small businesses have not yet fully recovered. Therefore, we must clearly understand that macroeconomic stability and household economic recovery are not the same thing.

That is the central argument of this article.

Sri Lanka’s return to middle-income status is certainly an important achievement. But it is not the final destination. The real challenge is to transform this statistical achievement into a middle-income society where every citizen can live with dignity, security and hope.

Have the Numbers Recovered, Even Though Households Have Not?

When we speak about Sri Lanka’s economy today, we hear two different stories. The first is the story of the macroeconomy. Inflation has come down. Foreign exchange reserves are improving. Tourism is recovering. Exports show some progress. A measure of fiscal discipline is also being restored. From this perspective, it can be said that Sri Lanka is gradually emerging from the depths of the economic crisis.

But the second story is heard inside the homes of ordinary people. It is the story of daily life, which is not always visible in macroeconomic reports.

Many families today manage their monthly expenses not because their income has increased, but because they have reduced their needs. They change their food habits. They reduce nutrition. They give up leisure. They limit children’s private tuition classes. They postpone medical tests. They delay repairs to their homes. Instead of thinking about new investments, their main goal has become simply to maintain their present way of life.

This is not only a story of insufficient income. It is also a story of weakened purchasing power. Even if nominal wages have increased to some extent, their real value has not fully returned to pre-2022 levels for many families. As a result, the common feeling among people is clear: “They say the economy is recovering, but we still do not feel it in our lives.”

The condition of the middle class is particularly important. In any country, the middle class is a key pillar of economic stability. It pays taxes, invests in children’s education, buys homes, starts small businesses and contributes significantly to domestic consumption. But over the past few years, a large section of Sri Lanka’s middle class has moved backwards economically.

Their wages increased more slowly than the cost of living. Income tax burdens rose. Electricity, water and service charges increased. Housing loans and vehicle loans absorbed a significant part of monthly income. As a result, their capacity to save for the future declined, and their ability to face unexpected economic shocks weakened.

In economics, this is often described as “the squeezed middle.” It refers to a group that is not poor, but not secure either. This is the reality of many Sri Lankan families today.

The aspirations of the younger generation make this situation even clearer. A few decades ago, many young people dreamed of finding a good job and building their future in Sri Lanka. Today, for many, the dream is to leave the country. Doctors, engineers, IT professionals, accountants, nurses and skilled technicians are migrating in large numbers. This is more than a personal decision. It is a measure of the confidence a society has in its own future.

The most valuable resource of a country is not its natural resources, but its human capital. If that human capital begins to leave the country, it is a silent warning for development. This issue requires urgent national attention.

Small and medium-sized enterprises also deserve serious attention. SMEs create a significant share of employment in Sri Lanka. However, high interest rates, limited access to finance, rising input costs and weak domestic demand have prevented many businesses from fully recovering. Some businesses are not operating to make profits, but simply to avoid closure. In such an environment, the creation of new employment opportunities remains limited.

The situation in rural Sri Lanka is no different. Farmers face the triple challenge of rising production costs, market uncertainty and climate risks. Fishermen struggle with fuel and operational costs. Small traders suffer from declining consumer demand. These groups do not speak in the language of macroeconomic indicators. They speak about daily income and the cost of living.

This brings us to another important point. Economic growth and inclusive development are not the same thing. National income can rise. But if the benefits of that growth reach only a limited section of society, such growth is not socially sustainable. The real question of development is not only how much a country earns, but who receives the benefits, how they receive them and how widely those benefits are shared.

Therefore, Sri Lanka’s main challenge today is not only to build macroeconomic stability. It is to convert that stability into a visible improvement in the life of the ordinary family. The numbers seen in economic reports must become purchasing power in the marketplace. Investments must become decent jobs. Growth must become shared prosperity.

If this does not happen, Sri Lanka may be a middle-income country statistically, but it would still be difficult to call it a middle-income society in any meaningful social sense.

How Can a Real Middle-Income Society Be Built?

Joseph Stiglitz has repeatedly reminded us that GDP and national income may show a country’s production capacity, but they do not adequately measure well-being, income distribution or social justice. Therefore, policymakers must focus not only on increasing numbers, but also on sharing prosperity.

Michael Porter also reminds us that a country’s competitiveness is not built on low wages. It is built on higher productivity, innovation, strong institutions and skilled human capital. This message is highly relevant to Sri Lanka. If we are to escape the middle-income trap, we must move away from an economy that competes mainly on low cost and move towards an economy that creates knowledge, technology and higher value addition.

Countries that have successfully followed this path offer useful lessons. South Korea did not move from a war-torn poor country to a high-income economy merely through industrialisation. Its success was the result of long-term coordination between education, research, technology, industrial policy and strong state institutions. Vietnam has achieved rapid development by connecting itself to global value chains, strengthening exports, attracting investment and investing in human capital. Malaysia also gradually moved from a manufacturing-based economy towards a knowledge-based services economy.

These countries are different in many ways. But they teach us one common lesson. They did not simply chase numbers. They built institutions. They did not merely increase income. They strengthened productive capacity. They did not only grow the economy. They expanded the capabilities of their people.

Sri Lanka also needs such a long-term development framework. It should not be a collection of short-term programmes that change whenever governments change. It must be a national development compact that goes beyond party politics and looks ahead over the next two or three decades.

Such a framework must place productivity at the centre of national economic policy. Wages can rise sustainably only when productive capacity rises. Investment in education, vocational training and digital skills must be significantly increased. SMEs must be developed as engines of employment by expanding access to finance, technical support and new markets. Strong, transparent and accountable public institutions must be built to create trust among both investors and citizens. Development benefits must also reach rural communities, women, youth and vulnerable groups through an inclusive development model.

From Middle-Income Classification to a Middle-Income Society

In the end, Sri Lanka’s return to middle-income status reminds us of a simple but profound truth. The development of a country is not merely the beauty of numbers in public accounts. It is the quality of people’s lives. Does a child have access to a good school? Can a patient receive quality healthcare? Can a young person find decent employment? Does an entrepreneur have a fair opportunity? Can a retired person live without fear and insecurity? The answers to these questions are the true measure of a country’s development.

Therefore, we should not reject the international recognition that comes with being classified as a middle-income country. It is an important signal that Sri Lanka is moving towards some degree of stability after the economic crisis. But it would be a serious mistake to treat it as the end of the achievement. It must be seen as the beginning of a new development responsibility. A country being called middle-income and its people actually experiencing a middle-income quality of life are not the same thing.

Sri Lanka’s real challenge is not to obtain an income classification, but to strengthen the foundations that create income. If institutions are not strong, if human capital is not developed, if productivity does not rise, if competitiveness does not expand and if opportunities are not fairly distributed, the name “middle-income country” will not translate into a real improvement in people’s lives. It will remain a statistical label in an international report, without meaningful impact on the kitchen of an ordinary family, the classroom of a child, the job hopes of a young person or the daily struggle of an entrepreneur.

For this reason, Sri Lanka’s policy conversation must now move in a new direction. It should not end with the question, “Are we a middle-income country?” The more important question is, “What kind of society are we building?” Are we building a society with fair opportunities? A society where labour is respected? A society where talent can move forward? A society where poverty is not inherited? A society where migration is not the only hope for young people?

The policy answer is clear. First, macroeconomic stability must be maintained. But it should be treated not as the final goal, but as the foundation for broader human development. Second, productivity must be placed at the centre of national economic policy. Wages can rise in the long term not by command, but by increasing the value of labour, productive capacity and innovation. Third, education, vocational training, digital skills and lifelong learning must become the main investment areas of the future economy.

Fourth, small and medium-sized enterprises must be made the engines of job creation in Sri Lanka. This requires better access to finance, technical assistance, market access and a simpler regulatory environment. Fifth, Sri Lanka must build a public institutional system that both investors and citizens can trust. Policy stability, the rule of law, transparency, accountability and an efficient public service are essential for sustainable development. Sixth, the benefits of development must not be limited to Colombo and major urban centres. They must reach rural areas, women, youth, farmers, small entrepreneurs and vulnerable social groups in a fair and meaningful way.

For all this to succeed, Sri Lanka does not need another short-term programme. It needs a long-term national development compact that rises above party politics. It must not be confined to a five-year electoral cycle. It should be built on a national vision for at least the next twenty or thirty years. Without a development framework that connects institutions, education, skills, industry, exports, technology, social protection and regional development, it will be difficult to move from a middle-income country to a society with a higher quality of life.

Finally, we must remember that a country’s income level is an outcome, not a cause. The real causes are strong institutions, skilled people, higher productivity, innovation, fair opportunities and trustworthy governance. If these foundations are built, the journey from a middle-income country to a middle-income society, and eventually to a country with a high standard of living, will become a natural progression.

Sri Lanka’s return to middle-income status is therefore a development we can welcome. But it should not be used to comfort us. It should be used to awaken us. The final purpose of development is not to make numbers look beautiful. It is to make people’s lives better. Only then will the statement “Sri Lanka is a middle-income country” become not merely an international classification, but a reality felt in the life of every family.

by Prof. Ranjith Bandara