Sri Lanka’s GDP grows 6.4-pct in 2015 first quarter

Jun 16, 2015 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s economy grew at 6.4 percent in the first quarter of this year with growth in the services sector, the statistics office said.

In the January-March 2015 period, Gross Domestic Product increased up to 912,534 million rupees from 857,497 million rupees in the first quarter of 2014, the Census and Statistics Department said in a statement.

High growth was recorded in manufacturing, up by 6.6 percent, electricity, gas and water by 9.5 percent, construction by 4.1 percent, wholesale and retail trade by 11.9 percent, transport and communication by 4.0 percent, banking, insurance and real estate by 5.8 percent and government services by 6.9 percent.

A statement also said that tea, grew by 7.1 percent, other food crops up by 4.9 percent, coconut which grew by 2.6 percent, and mining and quarrying, up by 11.3 percent.

The sub sectors of rubber, minor exports crops, and fishing contracted by 12.8 percent, 21.1 percent and 3.8 percent.

“The value added of the tea sub sector increased significantly by 7.1 percent in the first quarter of 2015 compared to the drop of 2.3 percent reported in 2014 first quarter,” the report said.

“New technologies used and the favorable weather conditions in tea growing areas increased the tea production in this quarter.”

However, the value added of rubber sub sector reported a huge negative growth of 12.8 percent in the first quarter of 2015.
“The rubber production of the country has been continuously decreasing from first quarter of 2014.”

The industry sector which contributes 32.7 percent to the Gross Domestic Product grew 6.5 percent in the first quarter of 2015 compared to the growth of 12.6 percent in the first quarter of 2014.

The manufacturing sub sector, which gives the highest contribution of 54.3 percent to the industry sector, grew by 6.6 percent in this quarter from the year before.