• Growth mainly driven by industrial and agricultural exports
• Apparel, fisheries exports to EU up due to GSP Plus, lifting of ban
• Tea export earnings hit US $ 1.4bn amid higher global prices

The exports continued to record a growth momentum for more than eight months in 2017, compared to 2016, except in three instances, the Export Development Board (EDB) said this week.

As per the latest provisional merchandise and export statistics, the EDB said the exports in the first 11 months of 2017 grew 10.82 percent year-on-year (YoY) to US $ 10.4 billion.

During the period under review, the export of services recorded a 5.8 percent YoY growth, registering US $ 3.36 billion. The foreign exchange earnings of merchandise and services exports are expected to be US $ 15 billion by end-2017.

“The growth in exports was mainly driven by industrial exports (42 percent) followed by agricultural (18 percent) and fisheries (42 percent) respectively,” the EDB said.
The industrial exports contribute almost two-thirds of the total export earnings of the country, while 24 percent is from agricultural products and 2 percent from the fisheries sector.

The earnings from industrial exports grew by 6.12 percent YoY to US $ 7.4 billion in January-November 2017, led by increased exports of apparel (nearly 2 percent), rubber finished products (nearly 8 percent), electrical and electronic products (nearly 17 percent) and paper-based products (21 percent).

The apparel exports to the European Union (EU) market increased by 2.21 percent YoY, recording US $ 1.8 billion in January-November 2017. This could be attributed to the restoration of the GSP Plus facility in May 2017.

In addition, the earnings from seafood exports to the EU region increased considerably by 117 percent YoY to US $ 49.41 million in January-November 2017, compared to that of 2016.

The notable performance in seafood exports indicates the positive impact of the multiple factors such as the removal of the IUU ban on the exports of fisheries products to the EU, regaining the EU GSP Plus facility, etc.

The earnings from agricultural exports increased substantially by 18.40 percent YoY to US $ 2,508.47 million in January-November 2017, mainly due to the performance recorded in tea exports.

The export earnings from tea increased significantly by 21.16 percent YoY to US $ 1.4 billion, due to the higher tea prices fetched for our tea in the global market, mainly Turkey (91 percent increase), Russia followed by Iran and Iraq.

The top markets during the period under review were the USA, UK, India, Germany, China and Italy for merchandise exports of Sri Lanka, accounting for about 55 percent of total exports.