Sri Lanka looks to India and China to address troubled economy

Sri Lanka’s Minister for Industry and Commerce, Rishad Bathiyutheen, said the country is taking measures to minimise the impact of the global financial crisis and will look towards India and China to increase their export market, reported ColomboPage.

The country’s exports to its traditional markets in the West have been declining recently and the minister said the government would take efforts to open Asian markets for their products.

"We are not going to remain passive at a time when our export markets around the world turn more challenging due to the decline in leading segments and the downward revision of GDP projections for India and China.

"We are under no illusions that our exports will continue to be easy as the markets become increasingly difficult. In fact, we are taking active steps to safeguard our exports," the Minister said at an event promoting Sri Lanka's cinnamon exports.

The EU and the US make up 60% of Sri Lanka’s export market, but the global financial crisis has caused Sri Lanka’s export’s to drop by nearly 6% in the first eight months of this year, compared to last year.

In August alone exports earnings decreased by 13% and the income from the food sector shrunk by a massive 45%.

Add new comment

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Global and entity tokens are replaced with their values. Browse available tokens.

Restricted HTML

  • You can align images (data-align="center"), but also videos, blockquotes, and so on.
  • You can caption images (data-caption="Text"), but also videos, blockquotes, and so on.
  • Global and entity tokens are replaced with their values. Browse available tokens.
  • You can embed media items (using the <drupal-media> tag).

We need your support

Sri Lanka is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist. Tamil journalists are particularly at threat, with at least 41 media workers known to have been killed by the Sri Lankan state or its paramilitaries during and after the armed conflict.

Despite the risks, our team on the ground remain committed to providing detailed and accurate reporting of developments in the Tamil homeland, across the island and around the world, as well as providing expert analysis and insight from the Tamil point of view

We need your support in keeping our journalism going. Support our work today.

link button