Sri Lanka's Export Revenue Totals 9.7 Bln USD In First 9 Months Of 2020

Sri Lanka earned a total of 9.7 billion U.S. dollars from the exports of merchandise and services from January to September, the local media reported Friday

COLOMBO, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 23rd Oct, 2020 ) :Sri Lanka earned a total of 9.7 billion U.S. Dollars from the exports of merchandise and services from January to September, the local media reported Friday.

Citing a report from the Export Development board (EDB), the media reports said Sri Lanka's export revenue in the first nine months of this year was 17.7 percent lower than a year earlier, largely due to the COVID-9-induced shocks.

"It is remarkable to see that our Sri Lankan exporters have performed well during the current global COVID-19 crisis," EDB Chairman Prabhash Subasinghe was quoted as saying.

"We are hopeful that this trend will continue, and we can see a strong recovery through the end of the year," he added.

The total value of Sri Lanka's export of services for the period stood at 2.3 billion U.S. dollars compared to 2.

9 billion U.S. dollars from the same period last year, with only the information and communications technology/business process management (ICT/BPM) sector seeing a year-on-year growth.

Merchandise export earnings reduced 16.9 percent from January to September to 7.4 billion U.S. dollars, largely driven by a decline in exports of apparel, tea, and rubber.

However, exports of coconut-based products, food and beverages, other export crops, and petroleum products grew by 4 percent, 2 percent, 148 percent and 6 percent, respectively, from January to September.

Sri Lanka's monthly export revenue dipped to a low of 458.6 million U.S. dollars in April amid the COVID-19 pandemic but experienced a V-shaped recovery to 1.3 billion U.S. dollars in July.

Export revenue has remained over 1 billion U.S. dollars from July to September.