Lanka’s digital economy expected to reach USD 3.47 Bn

The digital economy in Sri Lanka is increasing and was estimated to have expanded to USD 3.47 billion. This is 4.37% of GDP said Strategic Adviser, Huawei Technologies Lanka Co (Pvt) Ltd. Indika De Zoysa at a media event organized by the company.

The goal under the Digital Economy Strategy 2030 is to cross the 20% mark by 2030 and this target seems achievable under the six year plan. He said that a special task force has been appointed by President Ranil Wickremesinghe who himself is heading it. This initiative has engaged in many initiatives not only in Colombo but in rural areas as well to achieve this objective. He said that there is also new enthusiasm shown by the younger employees of the public sector towards moving towards a digital economy.

However some of the senior officials of the public sector who are on the brink of retirement and who have little knowledge of ICT still prefer to perform their duties via traditional methods. “They are not keen to adapt to new ICT technology and this is a major drawback to implementing the country’s public sector digitalization drive.”

This along with some of the lethargic attitudes of a few public sector employees, delays the implementation of the government road map to digitalize the public sector.

“It’s still sad to see that for example a person from Jaffna still spending nearly 12 hours to travel from his home to Colombo’s government office to get a two minute documentation done.! However we see the adoption of new technology in many of the government institutions and this is very pleasing and people too are adapting to this. “The recent QR code for fuel is an example of a highly successful use of ICT for the public sector.”

Digitalization while reducing corruption vulnerabilities will also reduce paper work and would have more accurate documentation.

He said that the digitalization drive also looks at getting more Micro and SME sectors involved in the process and the keenness shown by them is very encouraging. Currently their involvement in the digital economy is less than 10%.

The COVID 19 pandemic has also given a major boost towards moving towards a digital economy. He said that Huawei Technologies too are assisting this process and they also pay great attention towards Smart Education as well.

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