Sri Lanka has made a truly remarkable turnaround since an uprising in 2022, but if the island nation is to achieve sustained and equitable growth, its new government has no room for mistakes, says Chris Dorrell

Amid rampant inflation, fuel shortages and the country’s first debt default since independence, demonstrators forced Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee into exile in the dead of night.

TV cameras broadcast images of protestors swimming in the Presidential pool around the world.

That was 2022. Fast forward a couple of years, and Sri Lanka’s star is on the rise. Growth has returned, inflation is under control and the country declared an end to its debt default at the end of last year.

Investors were all in. The rupee was the top performing emerging market currency against the dollar last year while the Sri Lankan stock market climbed just under 50 per cent.

So, how did this island nation turn itself around?

First, it’s worth briefly recapping how the crisis emerged. Put simply, Sri Lanka ran out of money. This is generally regarded as a Bad Thing.

Its position reflected deep structural imbalances in the economy as well as........

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