Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2013-04-24

Submission of the Annual Report of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka for the year 2012 to Parliament

- the above Annual Report submitted by H.E. the President, in his capacity as the Minister of Finance and Planning, was approved by the Cabinet for presentation in Parliament. Some of its salient features are as follows:

* the Sri Lankan economy grew at a healthy rate of 6.4% in 2012;

* inflation was contained at a single digit level at 7.6%;

* investment as a percentage of GDP was 30.6%;

* the external sector strengthened during the year benefiting from the policy measures that were adopted in early 2012 to improve macroeconomic stability;

* the agriculture sector grew by 5.8% in 2012;

* the industry sector grew by 10.3% during the year, contributing substantially to the expansion of the economy in 2012; and

* remittances by migrant workers increased by 16.3% to US $6 billion during the year, continuing to be the largest single source of foreign exchange inflow to Sri Lanka.