Topic
World
Business | Asia
| Asia
Business |  Sri
Lanka
Economy - overview:
In 1977, Colombo
abandoned statist economic policies and its import substitution trade policy
for market-oriented policies and export-oriented trade. Sri Lanka's most
dynamic sectors now are food processing, textiles and apparel, food and
beverages, telecommunications, and insurance and banking. In 2003, plantation
crops made up only 15% of exports (compared with 93% in 1970), while textiles
and garments accounted for 63%. GDP grew at an average annual rate of 5.5%
in the early 1990s until a drought and a deteriorating security situation
lowered growth to 3.8% in 1996. The economy rebounded in 1997-2000 with
average growth of 5.3%, but 2001 saw the first contraction in the country's
history, -1.4%, due to a combination of power shortages, severe budgetary
problems, the global slowdown, and continuing civil strife. Growth recovered
to 4.0% in 2002 and to 5.2% in both 2003 and 2004. About 800,000 Sri Lankans
work abroad, 90% in the Middle East. They send home about $1 billion a
year. The struggle by the Tamil Tigers of the north and east for a largely
independent homeland continues to cast a shadow over the economy. In late
December 2004, a major tsunami took about 31,000 lives, left more than
6,300 missing and 443,000 displaced, and destroyed an estimated $1.5 billion
worth of property.
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Accommodations
Asia
Hotels, Motels, and Inns
Agriculture - Products
rice, sugarcane, grains, pulses,
oilseed, spices, tea, rubber, coconuts; milk, eggs, hides, beef
Airlines
Airlines
in Asia
Airlines
Worldwide
Airports
Airports
in Asia
Airports
Worldwide
Country Budget
revenues: $3.34 billion
expenditures: $4.686 billion, including
capital expenditures of NA (2004 est.)
Currency (code): Sri Lankan
rupee (LKR)
Currency Exchange Rates
Sri Lankan rupees per US dollar -
101.194 (2004), 96.521 (2003), 95.662 (2002), 89.383 (2001), 77.005 (2000)
Fiscal Year: calendar year
GDP (Gross Domestic Product)
GDP (purchasing power parity):
$80.58 billion (2004 est.)
GDP - real growth rate:
5.2% (2004 est.)
GDP - per capita: purchasing
power parity - $4,000 (2004 est.)
GDP - composition by sector:
agriculture: 19.1%
industry: 26.2%
services: 54.7% (2004 est.)
Imports / Exports
Exports: $5.306 billion
f.o.b. (2004 est.)
Exports - commodities:
textiles and apparel; tea and spices; diamonds, emeralds, rubies; coconut
products; rubber manufactures, fish
Exports - partners:
US 32.4%, UK 13.5%, India 6.8%, Germany 4.8% (2004)
Imports: $7.265 billion
f.o.b. (2004 est.)
Imports - commodities:
textile fabrics, mineral products, petroleum, foodstuffs, machinery and
transportation equipment
Imports - partners:
India 18%, Singapore 8.7%, Hong Kong 7.7%, China 5.7%, Iran 5.2%, Japan
5.1%, Malaysia 4.1% (2004)
Industries
rubber processing, tea, coconuts,
and other agricultural commodities; telecommunications, insurance, and
banking; clothing, cement, petroleum refining, textiles, tobacco
Investing
Forex,
Foreign Exchange Market: Currency Trading
Labor Force & Unemployment Rate
Labor force: 7.26 million
(2004 est.)
Labor force - by occupation:
agriculture 38%, industry 17%, services 45% (1998 est.)
Unemployment rate: 7.8%
(2004 est.)
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