roadBlockMobile
brand logo

Exports complete V-shaped recovery in June

09 Jul 2020

By Charindra Chandrasena Sri Lanka’s merchandise export earnings for June were $ 953 million according to the Export Development Board (EDB) provisional figures, EDB Chairman Prabhash Subasinghe told The Sunday Morning Business yesterday (09). This completes what is referred to as a “V-shaped recovery” for the export sector as it is on par with pre-Covid monthly merchandise export earnings figures. For example, it is close to the US$ 988 million earned through merchandise exports in February 2020, the last full calendar month before the Covid-19 outbreak in Sri Lanka. The export recovery momentum was carried into June from May, a month in which Sri Lanka earned $ 602 million, which was a huge improvement compared to the previous month of April in which earnings plummeted to $ 277 million, according to Customs statistics. The Covid outbreak in Sri Lanka came on 11 March, and the March merchandise export earnings figures reflected this sudden disruption with only $ 646 million being earned for the month. This was a nearly 42% drop from the $ 1,112 recorded in March 2019. Subasinghe said that no further details are available at the moment and therefore an understanding of the best-performing and worst performing export sectors is not possible. However, it is fair to assume that they are largely the same sectors which performed well in May that have built on that performance in  June.  These include the two main merchandise export sectors of tea and apparel along with other significant export sectors such as rubber and rubber-finished products, coconut products, spices and essential oil, food and beverages, and fisheries products.  (CC)


More News..