believe we are all aware that weaker communities have lesser chances of access and that situation leads to widening even further, the ever - widening gap. therefore, it is timely and appropriate that this forum addresses the need to impress upon the more wealthy nations to increase aid flows, open out greater trading opportunities, and move towards higher investment and resource build - up in the lower income countries. lest i be misunderstood, let me add that, not for a moment am i suggesting that the progressive steps the world and the international community have taken over the past few decades in developing new standards and norms are in any way, inappropriate or unwelcome. those initiatives were certainly necessary and have been beneficial for the overall advancement of society. but, we must, at the same time, collectively address the ever growing constraints arising out of the inflexibilities and restrictions imposed in the transfer of capital, wealth, skills, knowledge and the imposition of new standards, which may consciously or unconsciously act as subtle barriers to poverty alleviation. your excellencies, honorable ministers, distinguished guests, in order for all of us to appreciate the fact that what i am saying is not something new, let me now quote a principle as set out in the singapore declaration, and affirmed in harare. “ our aim is to achieve the freest possible flow of international trade on terms fair and equitable to all, taking into account the special requirements of the developing countries, and to encourage the flow of adequate resources, including governmental and private resources, to the developing countries, bearing in mind the importance of doing this in true spirit of partnership, and of establishing for this purpose in the developing countries, conditions which are conducive to sustained investment and growth ”. while this principle enunciates a very laudable and noble philosophy the unfortunate reality may be that the plethora of what we may call “ worthy restrictions ”, ( albeit they may be for the greater good of mankind ), may be actually but unwittingly assisting to keep the same developing countries in a tighter trap of poverty. the powerful message that emerges from this situation is clear. the present lowincome countries, when they have to struggle in this unsympathetic environment, need more understanding ; greater allocations for funding and investment ; increased direct aid flows ; and tangible support and direct concessions to recognize satisfactory “ compliance ”. at this stage, i would like to acknowledge a step in the right direction that has been followed

arjuna mahendran : the latest financial crisis and sri lanka speech by mr arjuna mahendran, governor of the central bank of sri lanka, at the international research conference, colombo, 7 december 2015. * * * professor yi fu lin, dr. harsha de silva, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen. welcome to this 8th research conference by the central bank of sri lanka. i must congratulate dr. nandalal weerasinghe and his colleagues who have developed this tradition which in no small way has established the central bank of sri lanka on the international research map as a meeting place for the profound minds of several leading academic and banking institutions. this conference itself is no small feat to have organized given that we have participants from several parts of the world in europe and asia including several areas that we have very strong relationship with as a country, and i think this is a great testimony to the continuing tradition that we have evolved in the central bank in terms of creating another center of excellence in sri lanka. in my opening remarks i thought i would perhaps take a leaf from professor lin ’ s commentary just now, and perhaps adapt sri lanka ’ s situation in terms of the structuralism or the lack of it that professor lin discussed. now when you look at the total economy, we have in the last five years gone through a fairly challenging period. as professor lin said we had the great recession of 2008 and its immediate aftermath what you found was that three strands of relatively new economic activism manifested themselves. in the first instance you saw a huge pump - priming effort by the people ’ s republic of china, which in its wake created perhaps the strongest commodity price boom that we have seen in recent history. that i think was a key take away from that period and china to some extent prevented the world from falling into a depression by stimulating its economy, and as professor lin has now elaborated to us, it falls in line with his perception that in times of recession developing countries are well - advised to go ahead and really stimulate domestic infrastructure construction etc. to take on the slack caused by international events. secondly we saw the major central banks of the world, that includes the united states, the europe, the united kingdom, japan and switzerland, creating money on an unparallel basis which for my calculations to date add up to about 8 trillion dollars worth of new money created in the last 5 to 6 years. that is significant. that ’ s the second strand that emanated