‘Recent Economic Developments: Highlights of 2020 and Prospects for 2021’

The Central Bank of Sri Lanka released its report on “Recent Economic Developments: Highlights of 2020 and Prospects for 2021”. The Report can be downloaded from the website of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka in all three languages. In addition to the regular update on economic developments, the report also presents an update to the medium term macroeconomic projections published by the Central Bank in April 2020, taking into account the information available up to mid-October 2020.

The publication of the report this year comes at a crucial juncture as the economy continues to navigate through multipronged socio-economic challenges and uncertainties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the report, the Sri Lankan economy, experienced below potential growth in recent years, encountered renewed challenges amidst the outbreak of COVID-19. Reflecting the combined effects of the spread of COVID-19 locally and the introduction of lockdown measures, the slowdown in global economic activity, and the adverse weather conditions in the country, the economy contracted by 1.6 per cent in the first quarter of 2020, year-on-year, as per the provisional estimates of the Department of Census and Statistics (DCS). GDP estimates for the second quarter have not yet been released by the DCS citing difficulties in capturing the true nature of disruptions and new activities as well as novel ways of working that emerged this year with the onset of the pandemic. Nevertheless, high frequency data point towards a strong recovery in many areas of economic activity in more recent months prior to the resurgence of COVID-19 infections and resultant containment measures in October 2020.

The recovery of activity was facilitated by the concerted efforts of the government and the Central Bank. Relief measures and large scale policy stimuli were introduced to help businesses and individuals affected by the pandemic. The Central Bank initiated a series of monetary easing measures, including multiple reductions of the policy rates and the Statutory Reserve Ratio (SRR), thereby injecting ample liquidity into the market and lowering borrowing costs significantly, given the unprecedented circumstances caused by the pandemic.

The adverse effects of the pandemic also prompted the introduction of concessional credit schemes to fulfil the needs of small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs), alongside debt moratoria for businesses and individuals affected by the pandemic. Responding to these measures, credit to the private sector showed a significant improvement in August and September 2020, reversing the slowdown observed in previous months.