to the services sector is the ever rising globalization of services. in the past, services which, by nature, cannot be stored, were non - tradable. hence, there was no any prospect of selling, services beyond the borders of a country limiting its clientele to its own citizens. if any foreigner desired to avail himself of any services, he should necessarily have traveled to the country of services at great costs in terms of both time and money. this is why cross - border services were limited only to areas where foreigners could have them relatively at a low transaction cost. in this context, the services which played a prominent role in the global arena were shipping and insurance services where the service provider visited the buyer and travel, education and health services where the buyer visited the service provider. in all these areas, sri lanka had an upstart over other competitive countries. sri lanka ’ s university system at the time of gaining independence was one of the best in the world. it also had a very reliable and high quality curative health system. for shipping services, it had the best comparative advantage by being located on a very important naval route. its ports in colombo and trincomalee had the best cost - advantage. its highly literate work - force with professional qualifications from the uk and other advanced countries could have provided the best insurance and banking services to the rest of the world. but, due to the inward orientation of the policies adopted since independence, these comparative advantages got shifted to other countries such as singapore, hong kong and australia. for sri lanka, it is, therefore, a story of missed opportunities. it is too late now to lament over the failed past. what the country should do is to plan for the future, so that sri lanka could conveniently get itself integrated to the globalised services industry. as argued by thomas l friedman 9, the world has become flat and the world nations, including usa, should recognize the flattening process of the world. if a country stubbornly and arrogantly refuses to accept this fact, it stands to lose, while others continue to move forward on an accelerated high gear. india, being one such country, has identified many areas which were previously non - tradable and took action to promote them actively. the advancements in ict through a wired globe have enabled india to do so at a rapid pace. as indicated by friedman, business process outsourcing ( bpo ) coupled with such personal services as secretarial services

he had referred to all the latest text - books, meticulously prepared his notes and updated them continuously. i still recall that the students were eagerly waiting for his lectures. this was because of the comprehensiveness of the lectures and the unique method of delivery. he used to explain the technical terms again and again as and when they emerged in his lectures, until their meaning was permanently implanted in our minds. we were all benefited by his up to date treatment of the subject. when i went to the uk for my post - graduate studies in mid 1970s, it was only in the case of subjects he had covered that i did not have the so called knowledge gap. professor tilakaratna was not only an academic, but also a policy advisor, manager and administrator. in early 1970s, he functioned as an advisor to the ministry of plantations industry and was appointed as chairman of the newly established coconut marketing board. unlike other academics who thought that they knew all, he had the modesty and humility to learn from industry. a big magnate in coconut industry recently related to me how he once visited a coconut factory and insisted on learning a to z of everything there. my frequent visits to him either at the coconut marketing board or at his residence were intellectual and academic journeys through all aspects of and issues relating to the coconut industry. we always returned home being much wiser than before. the university authorities too recognized his academic excellence and erudition fairly early. he was elevated, by double promotion, to the post of professor of economics and head of department at such a young age as 34. immediately after that, he re - organized the department of economics, introduced a post graduate diploma in applied social statistics and strengthened the department with new staff. i was one of the students who completed this diploma in its first batch. professor tilakaratna ’ s greatest contribution to economics was his continuous upgrading of the standards of the syllabuses and examination papers in economics at the gce ( advanced level ) examination to be on par with international standards. new theories, trends and ideas in economics were all built into his examination structures with a time gap of only one or two years. this strategy forced students, teachers and, above all, tuition masters, to continuously update their knowledge. the failure to do so would have meant failure at the examinations. from his side, to help them, he wrote text books, appeared on the educational services of both rupavahini and the broadcasting corporation and attended frequent