Sri Lanka Urged to Integrate Maritime Security and Digital Policy for Economic Resilience 📈

• Policy Convergence: Experts at an RCSS forum urged Sri Lanka to merge maritime security with its digital policy, emphasizing that physical coastal assets and technological capabilities are critical for national stability and economic resilience. • Infrastructure Protection: Waruna Sri Dhanapala, Secretary to the Ministry of Digital Economy and Chairman of TRCSL, underscored protecting submarine fibre-optic cables—the backbone of the ICT/BPM sector—within the national maritime framework. • Key Non-Traditional Risks: Discussions highlighted critical intersections across seabed resources, offshore energy, shipbuilding, marine pollution/oil spills, and climate compliance under UNCLOS and BBNJ agreements. • Tech & Institutional Gaps: Analysts noted that expanding Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) via AI, satellite imagery, and AIS introduces cyber vulnerabilities to ports and logistics. For resource-constrained economies, building institutional capacity and governance for AI and autonomous systems is vital for long-term growth.