 "No other place to go barring India or China: Sri Lankan PM")
Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe on Thursday marked out India and China as the only countries that can drive economic growth across the globe and manufacturing companies have no other place to go.
Critical of the western nations over selective treatment on framing economic policies, he said: "Asia will bail out the world (from the economic crisis), if it is allowed to frame the rules."
"WEF in Delhi this year says the world is expecting India to translate potential into action. We are at threshold of another historic moment. If the pace of reforms fails to pick up, companies may look elsewhere. Where elsewhere? It has to be India or China. That's the hard truth. There is no other place to go today," Wickramasinghe said in New Delhi.
Speaking at the India Economic Forum, organised jointly by the World Economic Forum and the Confederation of Indian Industry, the Sri Lankan Prime Minister singled out the West for favouritism.
"The rules were written by the West on globalisation, and we have only played by it. When people here went and deposited part of their funds and assets in western countries, no one complained. When their own people started going to Switzerland, they started complaining," he added.
"Asia will bail the world out. Otherwise, we create our own systems here (Asia). A very very stable system," he said.
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Speaking about Sri Lanka's economic engagement with the US, he said both will take the process further after the US presidential elections.
"We have kept 500 acres of land for a gold course and Trump towers," Wickramasinghe said, jokingly referring to Republican US presidential nominee Donald Trump, who is locked in a tight battle with Democrat Hillary Clinton.
With India, he said, Sri Lanka will ink the Economic and Technological Cooperation Agreement this year.