October exports reach two-year high of US$ 790 m

By Cheranka Mendis

Exports in October have hit a two-year high of US$ 790 million propelling the year to date growth to 12.4%, the EDB Chairman Janaka Ratnayake told Daily FT yesterday.

The revelation from the Export Development Board Chief came after Daily FT yesterday reported that September performance was down by US$ 100 million to $ 663 million from the previous high of $ 760 million in August.

Ratnayake said that though exports fell in September over August, the sector recovered sharply in October to achieve $ 790 million, which is the highest monthly figure since the all time high of $ 848 million in July 2008.

He also said that year on year September performance reflected a growth of 16% whilst first nine months exports grew by 11.4% to $ 5.7 billion.

“With record figure of $ 790 million in October, the cumulative value in the first 10 months was over $ 6.4 billion reflecting a 12.4% growth in comparison to the corresponding period of 2009,” the EDB Chief explained.

He said this “remarkable growth” was backed by the augmentation in all sectors of production except for fisheries and is now claimed as the best month of the year.

Quoting from the Sri Lanka Customs provisional statistics on export performance for the first 10 months Ratnayake said that when compared to the same period in 2009, agricultural products have seen an increase of 22.2% recording a figure of $ 1.64 billion and industrial products 9% to $ 4.5 billion. Export earnings from fisheries dropped by 6% reporting $ 138.7 million.

Under agro products, “tea recorded a 16 per cent growth rate with $ 1.12 billion while rubber saw a commendable increase of 81%,” Ratnayake said. Coconut exports bought in a revenue of $ 130.9 million, which was an increase of 3% over the first 10 months of the previous year.

“The textile and garment sector, which saw a negative impact for the past nine months, recorded a positive growth of 0.64% for the first time for the year. Between January and October, apparel export revenue was $ 2.674 billion. In the first nine months cumulative apparel exports were down by 2.5% to $2.3 billion.

“Diamonds, gem and jewellery saw an increase of 6.16 per cent, manufacturing by 30.7% and petroleum products by 6.7%. The growth signifies that with each month Sri Lanka’s economical stability is improving and that exports and business sectors are growing in confidence in the world market. We are expecting overall growth at the end of the year to be tremendous,” EDB Chief added.