All nations need a National Productivity Centre

An article by Lalin Fernandopulle in Sri Lanka’s Sunday Observer, headed ‘Productivity policy vital for economic growth’, promotes the worth of all nations having a National Productivity Organisation 

Sri Lanka is the only APO (Asian Productivity Organisation) member country which does not have an NPO (National Productivity Organisation).

Company director Sunil Wijesinghe says: “Setting up a fully-fledged stand-alone NPO is the way forward for industrial and overall economic growth in Sri Lanka”

He said their National Productivity Secretariat (NPS) is still only a unit under a Ministry while in Singapore and Malaysia they are powerful statutory bodies.

The USA was the most productive nation at the end of the World War 2 – Japan realised Asian countries lagged behind in economic growth and initiated the Asian Productivity Organisation (APO) in 1961 with Asian member countries – Sri Lanka too joined, albeit a few years later

Most other Asian countries had open economies at that time, and developed their productivity programmes fast

For example, the Japanese Government carried out a massive program to inculcate good productivity habits and promote productivity techniques and practices in the 1960s through radio and TV programmes but later it was the private sector that carried it forward through the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) and the Japan Productivity Centre for Socio Economic Development (JPC-SED).

At the start of the National Productivity decade in 1996 Sri Lanka started emulating Singapore but later the focus changed.

Singapore claims their productivity programmes have helped economic growth substantially – they had the highest patronage with former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew initiating the programme when the annual productivity theme was launched each year – the initial focus of the program was to make government institutions more productive.

A few Sri Lankan enterprises have adopted good productivity practices while others lag. We need a massive re-launch of productivity enhancing programmes in Sri Lanka.

Not only industrial growth but also overall economic growth can be influenced by productivity because productivity improvement techniques can be applied not only in factories but also in offices, plantations, schools, government offices and even homes

Sri Lanka lags behind in industrial growth since economic policies are not consistent – frequent policy changes wreak havoc on the strategies of private companies.

What is needed is for policy makers to prepare a comprehensive medium-term strategic economic plan, in a similar way to strategic corporate plans – Singapore prepared a Strategic Economic Plan in 1990 and stuck to it.

Thereafter we need to communicate it to the people using tried and tested change management programmes so that the population buys in to it.

The ideal would be economic policy stability even with changes of government.

During a productivity study tour to Singapore in the 1980s, and following a briefing at the then Singapore Productivity Board, one of our Sri Lankan colleagues visited the wash room and, having seen a notice there which said “20 dollar fine if you don’t flush”, came back and asked the Director conducting the briefing how they could identify who the culprit is. His response was: “How come only Sri Lankan visitors ask this question? The notice in the toilet is a mere deterrent,” he said.

He said having observed the happenings in Sri Lanka, Singaporeans believe that Sri Lankans are overly legalistic, and this hampers progress.

Today every newspaper, radio and TV channel gives pride of place to (anything other than) coverage of management, productivity, or economics

We should focus on building up our economy and improving the productivity of our enterprises

And setting up a properly resourced NPO would be a good start

N.B. The same void exists in the UK where there is no well resourced/ well-known UKPC – Why?

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