Sri Lanka to achieve ‘ambitious target’ in exports
Sri Lanka is looking at increasing its exports by ensuring all state institutions work towards this end with a focus on the ASEAN bloc and achieving an ‘ambitious target’.
New Export Development Board (EDB) Chairman Prabhash Subasinghe was concerned that Sri Lanka’s export statistics were remarkably ‘very poor’ compared to other countries in the region. He made these observations at a media briefing held this week to inaugurate this year’s plan of action by the EDB.
He noted that the EDB has an ‘ambitious target’ to achieve this year with total exports to bring in revenue amounting to US$18.5 billion. Merchandising target is $13.5 billion and service sector is to achieve $5 billion.
Last year the country achieved $16.1 billion in exports with a marginal increase of 1.5 per cent compared to 2018. Merchandise exports showed no growth stagnating at $11.9 billion and service exports recording a 5 per cent growth at $4.2 billion.
Mr. Subasinghe explained that ‘Sri Lanka needs to make exports a national priority’ adding that the state institutions should engage with the EDB towards this end.
Sri Lanka is likely to finalise the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with China this year, it was pointed out and noted it is important to grow exports to Asia.
Currently Sri Lanka’s key export markets are US that brought in $3139 million, UK at $998 million, India $759 million, Germany $646 million and $531 million from Italy.
Sri Lanka exported just $1.1 billion goods to South Asia in 2019 that accounted for 9.4 per cent of total exports from the country.
The government has plans to engage anchor investors to generate export-led foreign investment into the country, and in this respect, the EDB is to work with the Board of Investment (BOI) to attract new investors.
The new Chairman also pointed out that it is necessary to change the export basket as it had not changed for quite some time. “We should be looking at what the exports should be in 20 years’ time,” he said.
The EDB is to continue to work on the National Export Strategy (NES) that has already been established and endorsed by the government, he said.
Further he said that exports to GDP ratio has to increase to 30 per cent at least in the medium/long term.