Fredrik Sjöholm: This is a well-written and interesting paper. It is highly informative and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to understand Sri Lanka's modern political and economic history. The paper gives a slightly sad aftertaste considering the many opportunities that have been missed and a potential that was never fulfilled.
Having said that, the presented description might be overly gloomy and there is perhaps not enough recognition of the achievements that have taken place in the last few years. I think one has to put Sri Lanka's current situation in perspective. Its development in the last few years is far superior to what Sri Lanka has experienced in a long time. As an example, economic growth averaged around 6.5 percent in the last 10 years and around 7.5 percent in the last 5 years. These figures should be compared to the negligible growth rate that used to...