Proposed digital economy to uplift GDP by 1 to 3-pct in 2019: McKinsey

Jan 08, 2018 (LBO) – McKinsey & Company, a worldwide management consulting firm has confirmed that the proposed digital economy for Sri Lanka could uplift country’s GDP by 1 to 3 percent in 2019. Issuing a press release, Policy Development Office said McKinsey & Company has confirmed this while presenting their inception report for developing a digital economy strategy at a steering committee meeting held last week. This initiative will enable Sri Lanka to scientifically identify appropriate opportunities for promoting digital economy and the key enablers to promote it, as well as initiate three flagship programs that would promote that strategy. According to the Policy Development Office, the current consultancy with McKinsey & Company is a short term eleven-week assignment which will be conducted in three phases. The first phase will focus on the diagnostics to develop an understanding of Sri Lanka’s readiness to move into the digital economy. The second phase will concentrate on designing three flagship programs to kick-start the digital economy and ten projects to establish key enablers to support it. The final phase will focus on launching the identified programs and projects. This initiative is to strategize the promotion of the digital economy through the lens of three economic development thrust sectors, namely, agriculture sector, tourism sector and the manufacturing sector. It is expected that each of the sectors identified will could develop at least one flagship programs to support this initial stage of country’s digital economy strategy. At the recent meeting, it has been decided that the diagnostics phase of the assignment will commence by 15th January and last a period of two weeks. This would be followed by a five-week design phase, during which it is expected to have the relevant programs and projects identified and ready to be launched by early April, 2018. In mid-December 2017, the Digital Infrastructure Ministry with the support of McKinsey & Company embarked on the process of developing Sri Lanka’s digital economy strategy. Telecommunication & Digital Infrastructure Minister Harin Fernando earlier said the cost of this exercise is around 1.425 million US dollars. Related: McKinsey to prepare strategies for Sri Lanka’s Digital Economy