Sri lanka's migrant labour keeps economy afloat | Bangkok Post: business

BY INVITATION

'The old order changeth yielding place to new," said the 19th century poet Alfred Lord Tennyson in his poem on the death of King Arthur. The context might be entirely different but the words seem apposite to describe the metamorphosis in Sri Lanka's economy in the 64 years since independence.

When Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) gained independence from the British in February 1948 _ a year after India and Pakistan and one month after Burma _ it inherited a colonial economy.

Independent Ceylon began with a plantation export sector that contributed 30% of gross domestic product. Tea, rubber and coconuts, the three major export crops, provided 90% of the country's total foreign earnings. That was how dependent Ceylon was on plantation agriculture that was dominated by tea, then largely owned by British companies and reputedly the world's best tea.