In this issue

Special Economic Zones and distortions within economies

In 1978, the establishment of the Greater Colombo Economic Commission (GCEC), the precursor to the BOI, didn’t attract widespread ire perhaps because it didn’t involve a giant Chinese corporation and the development of a landmass reclaimed from the sea the size of Monaco. Some of the controversy with the proposed Port City bill has been about its alleged inconsistency with the constitution. The Supreme Court will deal with such matters.
However, the GCEC and the Port City Colombo have similar objectives for the special economic zones they established or propose to. Special economic zones cover a broad range of facilities and generally offer investors a geographically defined area, lower taxes and regulatory incentives than the rest of the country.
For a country, establishing SEZs have two main types of benefits, which explain their popularity. The first are economic benefits such as jobs, export growth and increased government revenue due to expansion in economic activity. The second are more dynamic economic benefits such as innovation, economic diversification, higher productivity of local firms due to competition, technology transfer and skills upgrading.
Some of the opposition to the Port City is due to its conferring tax, tariff and regulatory incentives unavailable to businesses elsewhere in the country. This may create distortions if Port City businesses offer products and services in the rest of the country. However, like the businesses in the first SEZs, which were enclaves for manufacturing, investors in the Port City will be attracted by the global service hub potential and not by serving the tiny Sri Lankan market. Like the SEZs under the GCEC and subsequently BOI transformed Sri Lanka’s manufacturing export sector, Port City can do the same for creating a globally competitive services sector in the county.

Echelon Magazine Description:

Intelligent Storytelling

The one thing that will define the Echelon magazine will be the quality of the storytelling. Echelon,published monthly, will cover in depth Sri Lanka’s most successful businesses, examine their winning strategiesand profile their leaders in immersive stories. Great stories are also never limited to words, and our approach includes rich photography, bold graphics and leading edge design which together will make for a compelling read.

But business doesn’t start and end in a boardroom;it extends to the golf club greens, to international travel and to pursuits that blurthe lines between commercial venture and sheer passion. The Echelon team will present the best in business and lifestyle coverage that will appeal to an exclusive and affluent readership: an otherwise hard to reach demographic.

Content will be developed by one of the most experienced and proven teams of editors, financial journalists, photographers and designers in the country.This team has already raised the bar for powerful and expertly crafted business news. Shamindra Kulamannage, will lead the editorial team.

The reputation of Echelon is being built on the separation between editorial and advertising. However we are also looking for the most creative and impactful new formats that can be applied in our magazines, iPad app as well as website to help our clients reach our audience. We are flexible and creative and we will have a solution for every single advertiser who wants to reach our audience.

We are passionate about creative results and about working with our advertisers to help them create bespoke multi platform creative solutions with our in house creative team and of course our sales team.

Echelon will be a great place to show off the products and capabilities of our clients because they will be surrounded by an editorial product that is expertly crafted, full of integrity and intelligence.