Sri Lanka’s first quarter exports remained strong desite volatile global oil prices and global downturn. Appearing unaffected, the country reported only a marginal 1.4% export drop (US$2.63 billion) compared to last year’s first quarter at US$2.67 billion.
Minister Rishad Bathiudeen of Sri Lanka’s Industry and Commerce said, “Even though our own industrial exports fell due to lower earnings from exports of textiles and garments and petroleum products, we believe that our apparel export fall was due to the overall demand drop in our key markets of EU and US. The same pattern appears for other South Asian apparels too. But I believe these minor deviations would not affect our $ 12 Bn export target for 2012.”
Although Sri Lanka’s textiles and garments earnings declined by 11.7%. in March 2012, it still continued to be the largest export earner with $ 319 Mn in March 2012.
“Impact of oil import costs and rising energy costs are affecting manufacturing bottom-line and as a result our international competitiveness could to suffer” Minister Bathiudeen cautioned.