Tourism, worker remittances top forex in 2010/16
View(s):Not unexpected, tourism and worker remittances made the biggest foreign exchange gains between 2010 and 2016, a new report from the Ministry of Finance shows.
In its 2016 annual report released last week, Ministry statistics show that while export earnings rose to US$10 billion in 2016 against $8.6 billion in 2010, tourism revenue soared to $3.5 billion last year against $576 million in 2010 while worker remittances was up at $7.2 billion against $4.1 billion in 2010. Imports cost rose to $19 billion against $13 billion, six years ago while the balance of payments was – $2 billion against +$921 million in 2010.
In other interesting data, the number of subscribers for mobile phones saw a phenomenal jump to 26.2 million against 17.2 million in 2010. The number, in recent years, has been higher than Sri Lanka’s 21 million people because many subscribers have two or three SIM (subscriber identity module) cards. The number of fixed telephone lines fell to 2.5 million from 3.5 million in 2010 which was not unexpected with most people opting to use only mobile phones. Internet and email subscribers rose to 4,920 from 480 in 2010.
Of interest to those in the media was that the number of newspapers more than doubled to 230 in 2016 from 112 in 2010, with the rise largely in the Sinhala media (136 against 66) and English media (44 from 28) while the Tamil newspapers rose to 38 from 18.
Reciprocally the rise in the number of TV channels was marginal to 24 from 20 in 2010 with the increase coming mainly from private channels at 19 from 14 earlier.
Among other economic indicators, annual average inflation fell to 3.7 per cent in 2016 from 6.2 per cent in 2010. Agriculture as a share of GDP fell to 7.1 per cent while industry was virtually unchanged at 26.8 per cent and services rose marginally to 56.5 per cent from 54.6 per cent. Agriculture growth was on the negative side at – 4.2 per cent in 2016 from +7 per cent in 2010.