Category: Daily Financial Times

The Central Bank Governor Dr. Nandalal Weerasinghe’s recent remarks projecting 4-5% growth in 2026 and highlighting improving reserves, lower inflation, and financial stability have been widely welcomed. After the trauma of Sri Lanka’s economic crisis, any sign of normalcy is understandably reassuring. Yet this optimism needs to be read carefully. What is being presented is largely a story of stabilisation and recovery, framed in the familiar IMF language of macroeconomic management. That is necessary-but it is not the same as a pathway to durable growth.

The first issue is the nature of the projected growth itself. A 4-5% expansion can occur for many reasons, not all of which strengthen an economy in the long run. In this case, a significant part of the momentum is expected to come from post-cyclone reconstruction and public investment. This will boost activity in construction and related services and create jobs in the short term. But such growth is typically demand-led and temporary. It raises GDP without necessarily expanding the country’s productive capacity, technological capability, or export competitiveness. Once the reconstruction cycle fades, so may the growth.

Durable growth

This points to a crucial distinction that often gets blurred in public debate: economic recovery and durable growth are not the same thing. Recovery means returning to a more normal macro environment-lower inflation, a more stable exchange rate, some rebuilding of reserves, and a functioning financial system. Durable growth, by contrast, requires rising productivity, structural change, and a stronger export base. Sri Lanka can achieve the first without securing the second. Indeed, that is precisely what happened in earlier post-crisis episodes, where short-lived recoveries were followed by renewed external stress.

The Governor’s narrative is best understood as an IMF-style stabilisation narrative. Its centre of gravity is macro control: inflation targets, policy rates, reserves, debt service, and financial-sector resilience. These are the right tools for preventing another crisis. But they are not a strategy for accelerating development. IMF programs are designed primarily to restore confidence, manage risk, and stabilise the macroeconomy. They are not designed to answer the core development questions: What will Sri Lanka produce? What will it export? How will productivity rise? Which sectors will drive long-term growth?

Seen in this light, a projected 4-5% growth rate is best described as moderate recovery growth. It may be entirely plausible-especially if driven by reconstruction and public spending-but it is not the kind of growth that closes income gaps, absorbs underemployment at scale, creates sustained fiscal space, or materially reduces debt burdens. Countries that have successfully caught up in Asia typically sustained 7-8% (or higher) growth for long periods, powered by export expansion, industrial upgrading, and continuous learning.

If the current Government’s development agenda is genuinely ambitious, then there is a clear mismatch between the growth implied by that ambition and the growth described in the Central Bank’s outlook. A strategy that settles for 4-5% risks normalising mediocrity rather than mobilising the economy for take-off. Reconstruction-led and consumption-led expansions can lift GDP in the short run, but they do not, by themselves, deliver the productivity and export breakthroughs needed for sustained 7-8% growth.

There is also a risk that reconstruction-driven growth will recreate old external vulnerabilities. Large-scale rebuilding increases demand for cement, steel, fuel, machinery, and transport services-many of which are import-intensive in Sri Lanka. This means higher growth can go hand in hand with a widening trade deficit, renewed pressure on foreign exchange, and imported inflation. The Governor has rightly warned about inflationary and external pressures, but the deeper issue is structural: without a parallel expansion of export capacity and domestic production of tradables, stimulus-driven growth can quickly collide with the same constraints that caused past crises.

The improvement in reserves and the claim that debt service is ‘manageable’ are positive developments. But they should be treated as buffers, not proof of long-term security. Sri Lanka’s recent history shows how quickly reserves can be run down when imports surge, exports disappoint, or global conditions tighten. Reserves buy time. They do not, by themselves, change the underlying growth model.

Similarly, the focus on bringing inflation back towards target and maintaining steady policy rates reflects sound central banking. Price stability and financial-sector resilience are public goods. But an inflation target is not a growth strategy. Durable growth comes from investment in productive capacity, from learning and technological upgrading, from moving into higher-value activities, and from building competitive export sectors. Without these, macro stability becomes an exercise in maintenance rather than transformation.

Stability is essential. Without it, nothing else is possible. But stability is not a development strategy. It is the foundation on which a strategy must be built. The real test for policymakers now is not whether they can keep the economy stable, but whether they can articulate and implement a credible growth strategy that turns stability into momentum and recovery into transformation

Structural reforms

The repeated reference to ‘structural reforms’ also needs to be treated with care. In policy practice, this often means reforms to pricing, state-owned enterprises, taxation, and public finance management. These may improve efficiency and governance, and they matter. But in development economics, structural transformation means something more demanding: a change in what the country produces, how it produces, and what it sells to the world. It means shifting resources into higher-productivity, more technologically advanced, and more export-oriented activities. Without that shift, an economy can be well-managed and still remain fragile.

What is striking in the Governor’s statement is not that it is wrong, but that it is incomplete. We hear a great deal about stability, recovery, and resilience. We hear much less about the growth strategy itself. Which sectors are expected to lead the next phase of growth beyond construction and consumption? How will exports be diversified and upgraded? What is the plan for skills, technology, and productivity? How will private investment be steered toward tradable, foreign-exchange-earning activities?

These are not academic questions. They go to the heart of whether Sri Lanka is merely staging another rebound or beginning a genuine breakthrough. The country’s repeated crises have shown that returning to ‘normal’ is not enough if the underlying growth model remains unchanged.

In sum, the Central Bank Governor’s optimism should be understood for what it is: a stabilisation narrative, not yet a development strategy. It tells us that the economy is becoming calmer, more predictable, and less crisis-prone-and that is a real and necessary achievement. But it does not yet tell us how Sri Lanka will grow fast enough, long enough, and differently enough to escape its long-standing cycle of weak exports, external vulnerability, and stop-go growth.

A recovery built on reconstruction, consumption, and macro control can deliver 4-5% growth. But the government’s own ambitions-and Sri Lanka’s development needs-require 7-8% sustained growth driven by productivity, exports, and structural transformation. That kind of growth does not emerge automatically from stability. It must be designed, coordinated, and pursued through a clear strategy for production, learning, and upgrading.

Stability is essential. Without it, nothing else is possible. But stability is not a development strategy. It is the foundation on which a strategy must be built. The real test for policymakers now is not whether they can keep the economy stable, but whether they can articulate and implement a credible growth strategy that turns stability into momentum and recovery into transformation. Until that strategy is clearly on the table, Sri Lanka’s current optimism-welcome as it is-should be read with caution, not complacency.

HNB PLC recently unveiled Luxury Living 2026, the premier real estate and financial showcase, on 24 January at The Kingsbury Hotel, Colombo. This distinguished platform brings together discerning buyers, visionary investors, and trusted developers under one roof, offering exclusive access to premium residential opportunities supported by HNB’s tailored financial solutions.

Hosted by the Personal Financial Services Division, the event reflects HNB’s enduring commitment to guiding clients through every stage of their financial journey. Senior leadership, including MD/CEO Damith Pallewatte and COO Sanjay Wijemanne, joined industry experts and developers to reinforce HNB’s role as a trusted partner in shaping Sri Lanka’s luxury living landscape.

Launched in 2025, Luxury Living quickly established itself as a benchmark for premium real estate engagement. With over 400 attendees across Colombo, Rathnapura, and Galle, the initiative drove significant loan conversions and strengthened developer partnerships. In its second year, the showcase expands its reach while maintaining its hallmark focus on quality, credibility, and long-term value.

The 2026 showcase featured curated developments by Prime Group, Home Lands, Bailis Investment and Groundworth, real estate developers renowned for their commitment to excellence.

HNB specialists provided bespoke financial guidance and market insights at enabling buyers and investors to act with confidence.

Roar Global’s transition from a digital media startup to a diversified group holding company marks a milestone for the Sri Lankan entrepreneurial landscape. This evolution, underscored by a strategic buyback of shares from early investors, validates a long-term growth trajectory and confirms the organisation’s shift into a mature, self-sustaining entity.

The move represents a rare full-circle success story in the local ecosystem. By reaching a scale that allows for such equity consolidation, Roar Global provides a vital proof of concept for the region: that Sri Lankan ventures can achieve sustainable financial maturity and independence. This feature explores the journey behind that growth and the roadmap for Roar’s next phase of evolution.

Roar Global – The venture builder

With six portfolio businesses, more than 150 team members, and group revenues exceeding $ 30 million, Roar Global has quietly built one of the region’s more substantial mar-tech groups, operating across highly specialised domains at the intersection of marketing platforms and artificial intelligence.

Founded by Mustafa Kassim, Roar Global is a mar-tech venture builder and holding company that builds, acquires, and scales businesses across deep, niche areas of marketing and technology. The group operates a portfolio of specialist companies spanning performance marketing, creator and UGC ecosystems, AI-driven brand visibility, automation, and creative production.

This structure reflects how modern marketing has evolved, moving away from generalist models toward platform-native, highly specialised execution.

Building companies at scale

At its core, Roar Global builds specialised marketing and technology companies.

That includes creating businesses from the ground up, partnering with entrepreneurs to develop category-specific ventures within the group, and selectively acquiring companies that have proven demand but require stronger operating foundations to scale.

Each company is designed to stand on its own, with its own leadership, positioning, and customers. What Roar provides is the shared layer beneath that independence: operating discipline, execution playbooks, platform expertise, talent infrastructure, and governance frameworks that most standalone businesses take years to develop.

‘Marketing today is too complex to be handled well by one generalist organisation,’ Kassim says. ‘The work requires depth. The challenge is making that depth scalable.’

Roar’s solution has been to separate focus from infrastructure, keeping individual companies narrow and specialised while centralising the systems that allow them to grow without friction.

A model shaped by platforms

Roar’s structure did not emerge overnight. It is the result of more than a decade spent building businesses in platform-driven markets.

The group began in digital publishing, where growth was tightly linked to platform dynamics and frequent rule changes. That environment forced early exposure to challenges, many companies only encounter later, scaling teams without losing quality, operating across platforms with competing incentives, and avoiding over-reliance on any single channel.

Over time, Roar began building internal solutions to address these challenges. Some were designed to stabilise execution in volatile platform environments, others to improve how teams scaled or how decisions were made under constant change.

As those solutions matured, it became clear they were highly specialised capabilities rather than general fixes. Several evolved into standalone businesses, each focused on a specific niche within modern marketing.

What started as internal solutions gradually became independent companies. What began as one business became a portfolio, built with an emphasis on operational readiness rather than speed.

Building through consolidation

As marketing and technology have become increasingly shaped by AI, Roar has leaned further into consolidation, selectively acquiring and integrating specialist businesses that deepen the group’s overall capability.

The aim is not to assemble a loose collection of companies, but to build a larger, more resilient organisation where each addition strengthens a specific area of execution and improves performance across the group.

‘The group is the value engine,’ Kassim says. ‘Every business we build or bring in should make the aggregate stronger.’

With more than 150 professionals across its ventures, Roar plans to continue expanding its portfolio, guided by where platform shifts and AI adoption are creating sustained demand for highly specialised expertise.

Looking ahead

Roar Global is increasingly positioning itself beyond its regional roots, with a clear focus on building a global mar-tech holding company anchored in specialised execution.

While the group operates with strong teams across regions, its growth is centred on deep, niche capabilities rather than geographic expansion alone. The aim is to scale alongside the platforms it works with, and over time, the group expects to expand its portfolio from six companies today to around twenty, adding specialist businesses that strengthen the group’s overall execution depth.

As AI continues to change how marketing is executed, Roar’s view is that durability will come from structure, clear mandates, specialist focus, and the ability to integrate new capabilities without fragmentation.

For Kassim and his team, the focus remains consistent: building a group that grows stronger with each cycle, compounds capability over time, and remains relevant as platforms and technologies evolve.

The Sri Lanka-Canada Business Council (SLCBC) of The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce hosted a Welcome Reception on 29 January, in honour of High Commissioner of Canada to Sri Lanka Isabelle Martin, bringing together members, partners, and guests for an evening of dialogue, celebration, and connection.

The event saw a full house with over 180 members and invitees, reflecting the strong and growing interest in strengthening bilateral trade, investment, and professional collaboration between Sri Lanka and Canada.

Adding further significance to the occasion, the reception also marked 35 years of SLCBC’s operations in Sri Lanka – a milestone that highlights the Council’s enduring role in fostering business relationships, policy engagement, and people-to-people connections across both nations. A ceremonial cake-cutting commemorated this important anniversary.

The evening was spearheaded by SLCBS President M. H. K. M. Hameez together with the Council’s dynamic leadership team, whose collective efforts ensured a well-curated and impactful event.

The reception served not only as a warm welcome to the High Commissioner but also as a reaffirmation of SLCBC’s commitment to advancing bilateral cooperation, supporting its members, and creating platforms for meaningful engagement in the years ahead.

New Anthoney’s Farms, Sri Lanka’s only producer of 100% antibiotic-free chicken, is celebrating 40-years of serving families with healthier, safer poultry. What began with Chairman Emil Stanley and his wife, Directress S. M. D. Marie Seetha Lakshmee, and their simple commitment to provide quality chicken to families in 1986 has evolved into a comprehensive journey of listening to customers, responding to their needs, and continuously innovating to deliver the safest chicken in Sri Lanka.

From humble beginnings with just 1,000 birds, Emil and Marie built their business piece by piece, always with their customers at the centre. They expanded their farm operations, built processing facilities, established cold storage rooms, and developed feed operations-each step driven by listening to families and understanding what they needed. Today, this customer-first approach has created a comprehensive ecosystem: the flagship HarithaHari range, innovative value-added products including Crizzpys and Frenchys, modern retail chain Meatlery, and free islandwide delivery through Dorakadapaliya-all designed to serve Sri Lankan families better.

Demonstrating their ongoing commitment to customers, in November 2025 the company announced a significant expansion with Chicken Havens, a premium eight-product range. This investment represents their capability to serve professional kitchens at scale while maintaining the quality standards Emil and Marie established forty years ago. The company continues to pioneer innovation that serves families, having introduced Crizzpys-Sri Lanka’s first ready-to-eat frozen crispy chicken-and Dorakadapaliya home delivery, bringing quality directly to customers’ doorsteps.

Chairman and Managing Director Emil Stanley said: ‘Starting with 1,000 birds and a conviction that there had to be a better way to serve families, we’ve created Sri Lanka’s model for sustainable poultry production. Our achievements represent contributions to national food security and public health that will benefit generations to come. We’ve always listened to our customers, evolved with them, and made decisions based on what families need-that’s been our guiding principle for forty years.’

This commitment to customers is backed by Sri Lanka’s most comprehensive certifications. New Anthoney’s was named ‘Best Exporter in the Processed Food Category’ at the 26th Presidential Export Awards. It is the first poultry producer in Sri Lanka to obtain FSSC 22000 certification, holds the country’s only Greenhouse Gas Verification Statement under ISO 14064-1:2018, and became the first company in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa to adopt the ‘Sustainable US Soy’ label for responsible feed sourcing, and first to introduce 100pct compostable, plant-based packaging for its HarithaHari range-all to give customers confidence in every product.

‘Our 40-year journey reflects an unwavering commitment to serving families with the safest chicken in Sri Lanka,’ said New Anthoney’s Farms CEO Neil Suraweera. ‘We’re pursuing ambitious plans across production, retail, and innovation-always listening to what our customers need. Every initiative in our pipeline reinforces the same principle: Sri Lankan families deserve the safest, highest-quality poultry, and we’re committed to delivering it while staying close to our customers.’

The company also holds HACCP, GMP, ISO 22000, and both local and international Halal certifications, while adhering to animal welfare standards set by the National Chicken Council, USA. In early 2023, continuing their commitment to control every aspect of quality for their customers, New Anthoney’s acquired Gold Coin Feed Mills (Lanka), one of Sri Lanka’s most reputed feed producers, ensuring complete oversight from hatchery to household.

Beyond serving families with safe chicken, New Anthoney’s leads public health advocacy on antimicrobial resistance. ‘When Marie and I learned about antimicrobial resistance, we realised our responsibility went beyond just producing antibiotic-free chicken,’ says Chairman Emil Stanley. During World AMR Awareness Week 2025, the company hosted a high-level forum in partnership with the Ministry of Health, bringing together policymakers, healthcare professionals, and veterinary experts. The company has pledged to make this an annual commitment, alongside employee awareness sessions and educational programs in schools and universities.

A fully loaded Kandy Sports Club outfit emphatically underlined their championship credentials in the Cup segment of the Inter-Club Rugby League 2025/26, producing a ruthless display to overwhelm Havelock Sports Club 42/17 at Havelock Park on Saturday with a six-try blitz.

The commanding six-try victory signalled that the defending champions are firmly back on track in the title race, with a home Super Final at Nittawela now very much within reach.

Kandy led 15/10 at the short breather.

Kandy’s performance was all the more impressive given they were reduced to 14 men for the final 15 minutes of play. Yet, rather than panic, the visitors displayed composure and clinical efficiency, outscoring Havies during that period and reinforcing their reputation as the benchmark side in Sri Lankan club rugby.

Fullback Hirusha Sampath opened the scoring with an early penalty, before winger Dinal Ekanayake produced two moments of individual brilliance. His intercept tries in the 10th and 23rd minutes, both taken the length of the field, stunned the home crowd at the Park and gave Kandy a firm grip on proceedings.

Havies showed some moment of back-foot on a Yellow Card to their overseas player and centre Junior Visesio, but later on managed to narrow the gap through a Nabeel Yahiya penalty and a converted try by hooker Azmir Fajudeen. At 15/10 down at the short breather, the hosts had momentum and belief.

However, Kandy raised their intensity after the break. Veteran fly-half Srinath Sooriyabandara cut through the Park Club defence and foxed the entire three-quarters of the Park Club to score a converted try, followed soon after by a centre Diluksha Dange try to extend the lead to 27/10.

Although Havies struck back through Vunaki Waqanibau, Kandy’s resolve remained unshaken. Even after Dange’s Red Card offence, the champions tightened defensively and finished strongly.

Scrum-half Heshan Jansen’s opportunistic try, along with a penalty and late try from replacement fullback Shaahid Zumri, sealed a comprehensive victory.

This emphatic result restores Kandy’s momentum at a critical stage of the League. With their balance, depth, and composure rediscovered, the champions have sent a clear message and, hitting the top gear at the correct time in the road to the title, a potential home sell-out Super Final at Nittawela awaits their supporters on 21 February.

Referee Meitetsu Shimizu handled the game with great control, allowing the game to flow and giving top priority for safety.

In another Inter-Club Plate segment encounter, Air Force Sports Club continued their dominance when they beat Army Sports Club 25/12 at Panagoda. At the short breather, the winners led 10/5.

To celebrate 15 years in service, Mark and Comm Ltd. recently hosted a panel discussion at NH Collection Colombo titled ‘Brands: Listen, Learn, and Lead.’ The event honoured the company’s exclusive partnership with Hootsuite and Talkwalker in Sri Lanka and the Maldives. By bringing these two powerhouses together, the gathering bridged the gap between international marketing technology and the local business landscape. This dialogue provided a platform to show how local Brands can use social listening and data-driven insights to move beyond simple monitoring and lead their industries.

The event saw a major gathering of marketing leaders, including CMOs and directors from banking, telecommunications, FMCG, retail, and hospitality.

Addressing the gathering, Mark and Comm Ltd., Managing Director, Thanzyl Thajudeen highlighted the session as the first in Sri Lanka focused on social intelligence and managing digital presence at scale. He reflected on the company’s 15-year evolution from traditional PR towards digital intelligence, noting that rapid digital adoption across the healthcare, tech, and hospitality sectors now drives the demand for global tools like Hootsuite and Talkwalker. As Brands today often manage multiple internal and external teams, the industry is moving towards a complex model that requires true scalability to remain effective. While the local market was not ready for social data in 2011, the landscape has since shifted, sparking immense interest across various sectors.

‘In this digital age, delayed decisions are missed opportunities,’ Thajudeen remarked, calling for a change in mindset among organisations currently hesitant to move beyond traditional methods. This delay can lead to lost prospects at a time when brands must analyse interactions from media, investors, and the community across various digital formats. He emphasised that ‘it is better to make a timely decision and adjust than to miss the window entirely,’ as global platforms provide the necessary insights to track consumer behaviour and audience sentiment effectively.

Joining the session virtually from Singapore, Hootsuite, Emerging Markets, VP of Sales, Benjamin Soubies said the platform was built to help brands create integrated experiences by centralising social media management within a single, secure environment. He noted that in a market where attention had become the primary currency, businesses needed to look beyond simple metrics like likes and shares to convert digital engagement into actual revenue. ‘Our mission is to help Sri Lankan and Maldivian brands navigate the specific nuances of their local markets while leveraging the full power of global innovation,’ he stated.

Hootsuite Strategic Enterprise Account Executive, Anubhav Khanduja discussed managing social media at scale, noting that with 12 million internet users in Sri Lanka, digital insights have become vital for business strategy. He highlighted a recent Gartner study showing that even major search engines are losing market share as users shift towards Generative AI. He argued for a model where humans and AI coexist, explaining that while AI is on an uptrend, it will eventually reach a stability curve as the market matures.

Khanduja points out that enterprises generally fall into two groups: those seeking full automation and those using technology to improve work speed while maintaining human control. He noted that the goal is to use these tools to drive digital transformation and move beyond vanity metrics, adding that every digital effort must now show a clear return on investment.

Talkwalker Client Growth and Innovation Director for Emerging Markets, Angel Calinisan shared how Brands could unlock the business value of social intelligence by moving beyond basic monitoring. She introduced a three-pillar framework: gaining real-time insights, taking AI-driven action, and measuring performance against specific KPIs.

She highlighted the capabilities of the Talkwalker platform, which is powered by the Blue Silk AI model to specialise in cleaning unstructured social data that changes by the second. By integrating online news, blogs, and Google Analytics across 187 languages, the platform provides a full view of the consumer. ‘Twenty years ago, having the most data was the advantage. Today, the advantage is how fast you can generate insights from that data,’ she remarked.

The panel discussion, ‘From Insight to Impact: Building Data-Driven Brands in Sri Lanka,’ explored how global frameworks could be adapted to work within the local market, considering its unique cultural influences and business realities. DAT – The AI Company, Co-Founder and CEO, Muhammed Gazzaly highlighted a significant shift from performance budgets towards direct content investment, noting that changing algorithms now require more relevant content to maintain visibility. Gazzaly argued that larger brands must learn agility from smaller ones, as bureaucracy often causes big firms to miss trends that smaller brands adopt instantly. He further advised marketers to be precise with their ideas, stating, ‘Be a sniper with your ideas. In the language of tech, fail fast and learn faster.’

APIDM, Founder and CEO Amitha Amarasinghe noted that while marketers are quick to adopt technology, they must constantly navigate the battle between innovation and privacy. He urged Sri Lankan marketers to be fast to experiment and avoid waiting for others to make the mistake, stating, ‘It is better to fail in a small market now than to fail in a bigger market after expanding your business.’ Amarasinghe compared the current shift in social intelligence to the digital spend surge of 2012, suggesting that those who start now will be the future market leaders.

As the moderator of the conversation, Thajudeen pointed out in his closing remarks that the market gap is a matter of mindset and courage rather than tool access. With 15 years of local PR experience, Mark and Comm Ltd has a deep understanding of what works, which gives Sri Lankan Brands a clear choice: they can either try to catch up or leapfrog the competition entirely by pairing Hootsuite and Talkwalker. To ensure they have everything they need to succeed, he left the audience with a final thought: ‘The question isn’t whether your Brands can listen, learn, or lead, it’s whether you will.’

Reflecting on the session, he noted: ‘What we introduced wasn’t just better social media monitoring. It was empowering Sri Lankan brands to compete globally with the same intelligence capabilities that drive decision-making in New York, Singapore, or London.’

Sri Lanka’s tourism sector has maintained its growth momentum in early February, with the country welcoming 80,776 visitors in the first eight days of the month, reflecting a 14% year-on-year (YoY) increase.

This performance has pushed total year-to-date (YTD) arrivals to 358,103, marking an 11% increase compared to the same period last year.

Data shows that the first week of February accounted for the bulk of arrivals, with 70,355 tourists entering the country, followed by 10,421 arrivals on 8 February alone. The highest daily arrivals for the period was recorded last Saturday (7), when 10,723 visitors arrived.

The daily average number of arrivals so far in February stands at 10,097, underscoring sustained demand for Sri Lanka as a travel destination.

India emerged as the leading source market during the first eight days of February, contributing 12,439 visitors, or 15% of total arrivals. The UK followed with 9,283 tourists, while Russia accounted for 6,946 arrivals. Germany and China also featured prominently, contributing 5,401 and 5,037 visitors, respectively. Other markets that made notable contributions included France, Poland, Australia, the US, and the Netherlands.

The YTD figures reflect a similar pattern, with India maintaining its position as Sri Lanka’s top source market, having sent in 64,500 visitors so far this year. The UK follows with 38,823 arrivals, while Russia has contributed 34,080 visitors. Germany accounts for 23,177 arrivals and China for 19,040 during the same period.

99x, a leading global product engineering company, recently announced the launch of Xiana, its latest AI-powered agent supporting facial recognition, intelligent automation and natural language interaction. Designed as a 3D visual assistant, Xiana reflects 99x’s approach to AI, adopting emerging technologies while actively building relevant AI tools that can be embedded into organisational workflows, both within 99x and across its customer markets. Xiana fuses 99x’s competencies in agentic AI, IoT, Language Models and enterprise application development.

The kiosk version of Xiana with standalone features was demonstrated at a recent career fair in Colombo. This offered complete natural language interaction across a knowledge base for software development and tech industry topics. The enterprise edition features facial recognition, two-factor authentication, integration with Office 365 suite to create emails and schedule appointments, and the ability to query an extensive repository of organisational knowledge across policies and processes. Integration points with SharePoint, Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) and internal systems are planned and will be released in subsequent iterations. Employees will be able to interact with the assistant using voice or text to carry out everyday tasks including leave management, meeting scheduling and policy queries, improving operational efficiency as the product evolves.

Beyond internal operations, Xiana also opens up new possibilities for how organisations approach user onboarding and first-time engagement. One such use case is concierge onboarding, where a visual, conversational AI replaces static landing pages and form-heavy sign-up processes with a more intuitive, human-like experience. Instead of navigating multiple screens and fields, users engage in a natural dialogue with Xiana, allowing the assistant to understand intent, introduce relevant product capabilities, and guide users through initial setup in real time. Account creation and access can be handled seamlessly through conversational consent, with credential management deferred to secure follow-up channels. This approach shifts onboarding from a transactional step to an interactive experience, helping organisations reduce friction, accelerate time-to-value, and improve adoption from the very first interaction.

99x Chief Technology Officer Sachith Perera said, ‘With Xiana, we are moving beyond adopting AI to building agentic systems that can integrate into real enterprise environments. By combining AI with IoT and core enterprise platforms, we are building systems that are secure, robust, and practical to use at scale. Just as importantly, this kind of work creates meaningful opportunities for our engineering teams to develop deep, real-world expertise in AI systems that deliver long-term value for our customers’.

99x intern Pradeesha Hettiarachchi, who worked closely on the embedded and IoT components of Xiana, said, ‘Working on Xiana helped me understand how AI and IoT come together in a real production environment. Beyond developing features, it pushed me to think about reliability, integration, and how people actually interact with the system on a day-to-day basis. Being part of that process was challenging, but it was also a valuable learning experience’.

With the introduction of Xiana, 99x continues to focus on developing intelligent systems with practical applications, reflecting a broader industry need for AI solutions that can be responsibly adopted, scaled, and sustained within organisational environments.

Why should access to basic finance – credit and savings – be a market-driven privilege, and not a right for farmers, fishers, low-income women, and all those the economy leaves behind? Why should Governments not safeguard the stability and sustainability of communal financial infrastructure? Contrary to reinforcing guarantees of collective communal rights, Governments have been allies of big finance in jettisoning people’s right to organise community credit. The law has been the means of the powerful to disenfranchise people of their rights.

This article explores how a new regulatory framework proposed to standardise and monitor credit and microfinance lending in Sri Lanka – the Microfinance and Credit Regulatory Authority Bill – functions as a legal enclosure, denying age-old community practices for creating and controlling credit. The Bill is an obligation under a $200 million loan issued by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in 2023. It is ironic that a Government in debt distress uses an ADB loan to undermine the very foundation of community resilience.

Microfinance debacle in Sri Lanka

The dream of microfinance – democratising credit, empowering women, and ending poverty – was shattered in Sri Lanka eight years ago, as protests erupted against crushing debt, lost community assets, and violence from predatory lenders. By 2021, over 200 women had committed suicide due to unpayable debt. Similar uprisings by indebted women have occurred in Bolivia, Mexico, and India. In Sri Lanka, microfinance morphed into a predatory industry as commercialisation opened the door to venture capital, equity funds, and banks. Seizing on disasters, economic reforms, and war, microfinanciers unleashed a wave of high-interest loans, enforcing repayment through intimidation, often using police and courts to pressure women. With no debt relief or public policy support, the crisis deepened through the Easter Attacks, the pandemic, and ongoing economic turmoil. In 2023, the Government offered the Microfinance and Credit Regulatory Authority Bill – a regulatory fix to a manufactured crisis.

Predatory regulation constitutes a legal enclosure

The idea of a new regulatory framework surfaced in 2018. The Bill, made public in 2023 without satisfactory safeguards to protect microfinance consumers, overwhelmingly represented the interests of the finance lobby. Making matters worse, the Bill had also exempted big finance companies, which microfinance victims associate with their crisis, from new regulations. Under protests, the Government was forced to withdraw the Bill in 2024. The new Bill, which was expected to have addressed the limitations of its predecessor, is no better. Still failing to curb pro-profit lending and guarantee consumer protection, the Bill also lays the groundwork to destroy community credit mechanisms by subsuming them under moneylending and microfinancing. The fundamental problem has been that the architects of the Bill – ADB, the Ministry of Finance, and the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, have relied on false claims, i.e. 1) the microfinance crisis was created by the unregulated moneylenders, 2) Illegibility of borrowers made it impossible to contain the problem of multiple loans, as the premise to conceive the Bill. Based on false claims, the Bill has ended up becoming a predatory regulation and threatens to constitute a legal enclosure, destroying collective community rights to organise and control credit, an age-old practice that communities have enjoyed in Sri Lanka.

The authors of the bill assume that the problem of multiple loans arises from the illegibility of the borrowers’ loan history. To ‘solve’ the debt crisis, it mandates expanding the Credit Information Bureau (CRIB). Officials tout this as building a ‘credit history.’ In reality, for over 90% of low-income people – those without steady formal income – CRIB is a tool of permanent financial disenfranchisement, locking them out of fair credit and into the hands of usurious lenders. Their only lifeline is the mutual aid and women’s societies that the Bill now targets. Eradicating these community systems won’t solve a crisis; it will throw peasants, fishers, and women from the frying pan into the fire.

Community credit as a foundation of community resilience

The right of communities to collectively organise credit is not a novel concept, but a foundational tradition – and a right now enshrined in international law. The UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Others Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP), adopted on 17 December in 2018, upholds these collective community rights while recognising how such collective rights, as well as community property, or the commons, in everyday parlance, have been expropriated and are under threat as a result of neoliberal reforms. UNDROP, grounded on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and aligned with the Declaration on the Right to Development, formally recognises communal rights to land, seeds, and financial self-determination, while explicitly condemning their systematic expropriation by neoliberal reforms. It affirms a critical truth: peasants, fishers, and rural women are the primary producers and conservationists who suffer most from hunger and debt.

In Sri Lanka, facing an acute agrarian debt crisis, peasant farmers and women are repurposing community welfare associations, death donation societies, and mutual aid groups as spaces to address their credit needs, whether for cultivation or emergencies. Accumulated membership fees serve as shared reserves to draw from. Interest rates are determined through participatory decision-making. Here, capital is not extracted but circulated; decisions prioritise sustainability and economic justice over profit, and solidarity over collateral. In addition to grassroots communities, women’s organisations too have been organising around these principles for more than 30 years. They have succeeded in building assets, particularly savings for women, unlike microfinance companies and moneylenders who have dispossessed over 2.8 million women of their gold, household assets and savings. Microfinance companies have, in fact, been misappropriating traditional practices of women, such as concepts like ‘fistful of rice’, social networks and trust to make their lending model familiar to women. Community initiatives have been the bedrock for peasant farmers, fishers and women in hard times, whereas market-driven lending has pushed them between the hammer and an anvil.

International financial institutions impose regulations on debt-stricken countries, presenting them as safeguards for market stability and consumer protection. In truth, these regulations are a Trojan horse. Motivated by a long-standing preference for privatisation and markets, the real aim is not to defend communal rights but to dismantle them, replacing community-controlled credit with a financialised system. From this perspective, grassroots collectives and women’s savings groups are not seen as lifelines, but as hoarders of so-called ‘dead capital,’ standing in the way of commercial progress.

Yet for rural communities – for peasants, fishers, and women – this so-called ‘dead capital’ is the very source of life. These communal initiatives are a vital defence, the last bastion of resilience against a predatory economic order.