Export revenue increase by USD 1.2 Bn in 2024

Sri Lanka Export revenue for 2024 has increased by over USD 1.2 billion as against 2023 said Mangala Wijesinghe, Chairman/CEO of Sri Lanka Export Development Board (EDB), while announcing the 26th Presidential Export Awards Ceremony which will be held on February 7, at BMICH.

Wijesinghe said that merchandise exports contributed around USD 12. 7 billion which include ICT exports of around USD 1.6 billion and apparel exports around USD 5.1 billion. Service exports accounted for around USD 3.5 billion.

The Chairman said they expect a major contribution from the Construction Industry that now has emerging opportunities in Maldives, Myanmar and Cambodia. “This industry brought to our notice that they are facing a ceiling issue of USD 1 million and requested to increase this amount to USD 5 million.”

“We have brought this to the notice of the government and are awaiting a positive response.”

The Chairman also opined that heavy taxation by the previous government is also creating issues for exporters and these will be addressed soon. “After bringing amendments to tax we expect the gem and jewellery sector also to double their contribution from around USD 400 million to USD 800 million next year.”

It was also opined that similarly the ICT sector and other industry issues would be ironed out to help bring increased revenue. He said that with a focused campaign assigning many export related sectors they hope to even better this to USD 18.2 billion next year. “We expect 14. 7 billion revenue from merchandise exports and a further 4.2 billion from Service exports.”

“Our final target is to bring this up to around USD 35 billion by 2023.” He said that they are also looking at new sectors to include in the export basket such as modern technology based exports like nano technology and value added exports.

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