Sri Lanka Economic Summit 2018 kicks off today

Sri Lanka Economic Summit 2018 will be inaugurated this morning at Cinnamon Grand Colombo.

The two-day event, which is Sri Lanka’s foremost economic summit and organised by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (CCC) for the 18th consecutive year, will be held on the theme of ‘On the Fast Track to a Turnaround’.

“The theme ‘On the fast track to a turnaround’ was chosen with the aim of identifying levers that can be used by key policymakers and the private sector to drive change. The six thematic sessions will feature a wide range of strategies through which Sri Lanka can build momentum and overcome the slow economic growth it has seen thus far,” said Ceylon Chamber of Commerce Chairman Rajendra Theagarajah, in his message to SLES 2018.

SLES 2018 will close with a dedicated session on presentation on the findings of the summit with a high-level panel discussion on taking it forward, which Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe will be part of.

Fifty top expert speakers and panellists are lined up to speak at SLES 2018, forming a high standard intellectual debate on issues that relate to state and private sector efforts of driving an economic turnaround.

KPMG India Chairman and CEO Arun M. Kumar will address the summit today at its opening as the keynote speaker. His extensive experience in his travels around the world and engagement with senior government and business leaders provides the 2018 SLES an ideal and insightful speaker to kick off the two-day event.

Closing session panel would consist of CCC Vice Chairman Dr. Hans Wijayasuriya, Standard Chartered Sri Lanka CEO Jim McCabe, CCC Chairman Rajendra Theagarajah and CCC Deputy Vice Chairman Vish Govindasamy. 

The summit will see the attendance of 400 participants and the majority consists of chairpersons, CEOs, senior management of the corporate sector, senior public sector officials, and academics.

Standard Chartered Bank is on board as the platinum sponsor for the event, CHEC Port City (Pvt.) Ltd as Gold, Sunshine Holdings as Silver and Tata Holdings and London Stock Exchange Group as Strategic sponsors. Economy.lk, Dialog Axiata PLC, Echowave, Cinnamon Grand Colombo and Omnicom Media Group are also on board as partners of the summit.