NPP Govt Policy Statement by President Dissanayaka Fact-Checked!

- FactCheck.lk by Verité Research

On November 21, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake presented the policy statement of the National People’s Power (NPP) government to Parliament during the inaugural session of the tenth Parliament. 
The team fact-checked four statements from President Dissanayake’s speech, all of which were rated as True. 
Statement 1: English: At present, our IT sector has a small export income of USD 1.2 billion. 
Fact-check: The IT sector is defined as Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Business Process Management (BPM).  
Central Bank of Sri Lanka External Sector data reported IT sector exports as USD 1.227 Bn in 2023. Within this, ICT accounted for USD 917 Mn, while BPM contributed USD 310 Mn.  
Therefore, we classify the president’s statement as True. 
Curious about the relative size of Sri Lanka’s IT sector? It accounts for 7% of Sri Lanka’s total goods and services exports, and 23% of services exports. 
Globally, Sri Lanka’s ICT/BPM exports ranked 72nd out of 139 countries in 2022, accounting for only 0.04% of total worldwide ICT/BPM exports.
Statement 2: In our country today, we only have 85,000 professionals related to the IT sector.
Fact-check: ‘Professionals related to the IT sector’ are referred to as ‘IT workforce’. SLASSCOM data cites Sri Lanka’s IT workforce as 88,051 individuals. The president’s statement approximates this figure. 
Therefore, we classify the president’s statement as True. 
Curious about more numbers on Sri Lanka’s IT workforce? Check out fact-check on President Dissanayake’s recent statement titled ‘President Dissanayake correct when corrected on software engineers’on our website www.factcheck.lk. 
Statement 3: Often, it is the Western Province (WP) that brings us a large amount of the growths of the economy in our country. 
Fact-check: 2022 Provincial Gross Domestic Product (latest available) data by @CBSL shows that the WP accounts for 43.4% of Sri Lanka’s national GDP. WP is the largest contributor among the country’s nine provinces. It is 3.87x more than the second highest contributor (North Western). WP also ranks highest in per capita terms.  
Therefore, we classify the president’s statement as True. 
Statement 4: It was in 2018 that the highest number of tourists visited our country, which amounted to about 2.3 million tourists. We generated an economy of about USD 4.3 billion from that […].
Fact-check: CBSL External Sector data shows that 2018 recorded the highest value for tourism earnings (USD 4,381,000) and tourism arrivals (2,333,796).
Curious about how tourism earnings are calculated? Check out Verité Research’s insight titled ‘Tourism Could Not Have Solved Sri Lanka’s Foreign Exchange Shortage’ on www.veriteresearch.org. 
*FactCheck.lk’s verdict is based on the most recent information that is publicly accessible. As with every fact check, if new information becomes available, FactCheck.lk will revisit the assessment.
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