In this issue

Indefensible spending

The United Kingdom is a military power and maintains defence forces for security, to protect its interest overseas and project power on the global stage. Its armed forces are backed by modern nuclear weapons. The British Navy has two brand new aircraft carriers, its own air wing and nuclear-powered submarines. Its airforce is over 800 aircraft.

Sri Lanka has no nuclear capability, has no submarines or aircraft carriers and its airforce has three combat aircraft. However, Sri Lanka’s standing armed forces (army, navy and airforce) are approximately the same number of active service personnel as the UK. A legacy of the war, perhaps?

Thirteen years after the conflict with the LTTE ended, Sri Lanka maintains a defence force costing around Rs400 billion annually and similar in size to those of the UK. Defence spending had outpaced government spending and almost quadrupled since 2009 after the conflict with the LTTE ended. Defence and the police account for half the government’s salary bill although the combined personnel in these forces is far less than half the total 1.5 million in state jobs. Bloated defence spending is just one of Sri Lanka’s public finance challenges, and one that few want to discuss. However, the economic crisis has brought into sharp focus Sri Lanka’s real and persistent challenges. In June Echelon begins to explore the challenges facing Sri Lanka’s economy in series titled Reboot Everything.

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.