Sri Lanka achieves three year-on-year increases of merchandise exports

by Sanath Nanayakkare

Despite the global slowdown, Sri Lanka has recorded another year-on-year increase of merchandise exports in September 2020, according to the Export Development Board (EDB).

“Sri Lanka exports topped US 1 billion once again in September 2020 while also recording the third year-on-year increase of merchandise exports,” EDB said.

Sri Lanka’s revised export target for 2020 is $ 13.39 billion, and of that the EDB expects $ 9.57 billion from merchandise exports and $ 3.82 billion from services exports.

“During the first nine months, earnings from exports recorded $ 9.69 billion, including the estimated services data for July to September. Thus the country has achieved 72.4% from the revised export target,” EDB said,

On a cumulative basis, however, export earnings from January to September dropped by 16.58% to $ 7.4 billion compared to US$ 8.9 billion recorded in the same period a year earlier.

Meanwhile, according to the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL), the deficit in the trade account in August 2020 narrowed to US$ 342 million from US$ 541 million in August 2019, as imports declined at a faster pace than the decline in exports.