An increase of 57.5% as against 2022
Tourist arrivals top 1.5 Mn with US$ 2.068 Mn revenue
Sri Lanka recorded Workers’ Remittances (Inflows) of USD 5,969.6 million for 2023 showing an increase of 57.5% as against 2022. According to the Central Bank in the month of December alone the country attracted USD 569.7mn. Worker remittances for 2022 stood at USD 3,789.5mn.
With just one year of facing Sri Lanka’s worst ever economic crisis, Sri Lanka’s economic indicators showed sharp signs of getting back to normal.
For the first time since three years the gross official reserves passed the USD 4 billion mark as it was provisionally estimated at US dollars 4,400 million as at end December 2023.
This is including the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) swap equivalent to around USD 1.4 billion, which is subject to conditionalities on usability.
From a minus growth Sri Lanka moved into the positive territory and was recording a 1.2% economic growth and the upward trajectory is expected to continue. Branded as one of the countries with the highest inflation rate in the excess of 70%, the country managed to bring it down to around 3% in the final quarter of the year of 2023 and the Central Bank expects inflation to be maintained under 5% in 2024.
Tourist arrivals also touched the 1.5 million mark for 2023 and the revenue passed the USD 2.068 million mark. Sri Lanka earned USD 1,136 billion in 2022.
An official from the Ministry of Labour Relations said that one of the main reasons for the economic crisis was the lack of foreign reserves, tourism receipts and low flow remittances.” Due to the then Government decision to artificially hold the US dollar Sri Lanka expatriates used non-banking channels to remit money. But today as the dollar has stabilized people are using banking channels to remit money and this is reflected in the healthy Foreign remittances.” During the year up to January 5, 2024, the Sri Lanka rupee appreciated against the US dollar by 0.5%. Given the cross currency exchange rate movements, the Sri Lanka Rupee appreciated against the Japanese Yen by 2.8%, the Pound Sterling by 0.8%, the Euro by 1.6% and the Indian Rupee by 0.6% during this period. At the Colombo Stock Exchange ASPI gained by 25.5%.
