10 November 2021 12:11 am
By Shabiya Ali Ahlam
Sri Lanka is confident it can replicate policies of the most advanced digital economy in East Asia, China, in its journey towards digital transformation, but challenges remain in incorporating the learnings into the national policy framework.
The digital policy drawn up by the Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) and the United Nations Conference of Trade and Development (UNCTAD) states that the island nation can learn much from the success of China’s digital economy, which is a direct result of favourable policies followed by its government.
While in size and administration wise the two countries are hardly comparable, the policy paper found that Sri Lanka is in a position to replicate some of China’s digital policies.
“Replicating these lessons does not depend only on willingness but also on the country’s readiness. Given Sri Lanka’s current capabilities, it could take some measures immediately, but others would have to wait,” the policy paper launched last evening pointed out.
The comprehensive analysis found that Sri Lanka is relatively ready to implement policies with regard to data centres immediately, but the market and technical readiness for that is not as high as expected as yet.
However, with the Data Protection Act becoming law, ICTA is confident the legal and policy foundation for that will be laid out. The paper suggested that with high-speed direct links to neighbouring countries, Sri Lanka must focus on serving its data storage and processing requirements.
Another area where Sri Lanka can immediately replicate China’s digital policies is E-commerce. The policy paper stated that Sri Lanka is ready with most aspects for replication, restricted only by its relatively small market size. It pointed out that the challenge faced by Sri Lankan E-Commerce firms is to find business models to overcome the market size barrier.
Sri Lanka is also ready to immediately replicate education technology policies since the local education market is mature and advanced enough for such products.
“Community is ready, and capacity is available. So this is another area where replication should immediately happen,” the paper pointed out.
Meanwhile, areas such as fintech and robotics are expected to take about six months to two years to replicate since more is to be done to reach regional benchmarks and reach maturity.
Successfully replicating policies on 5G digital infrastructure, artificial intelligence, autonomous electric vehicles, robotics, and the electronic industry will take Sri Lanka from two years to over five years as more needs to be done to establish a stronger foundation, the policy paper pointed out.
It asserted that replication does not depend only on demand, but the readiness of the country must also be factored in.
It stressed it is essential that the successful international approaches are correctly identified and integrated into the digital economy strategy of Sri Lanka for achieving the stipulated targets.