Earnings from the merchandise exports increased by 10.24% y-o-y to US$ 1,213.7 million in August 2022. This was mainly due to the increase in earnings from export of Apparel and Textiles.
The Export Development Board (EDB) Chairman Suresh D. de Mel, congratulated the exporters for their great effort to increase foreign exchange earnings for Sri Lanka during this critical period. Major product sectors except Coconut based Products; Apparel & Textiles, Tea, Rubber based products, Electrical & Electronic components, Spices & Concentrated Diamonds, Gems and Jewellery, Food & Beverages, Seafood & Ornamental fish recorded increased exports in August 2022. Exports of Apparel & Textiles increased by 15.03% y-o-y to US$ 565.37 Mn in August 2022. The increase was driven by Apparel.
Export earnings from tea in August 2022, which made up 11% of merchandise exports, increased by 6.52% y-o-y to US$ 124.41 Mn. This was mainly due to the higher Export of tea packets (11.42%).
Export earnings from Rubber and Rubber Finished products have increased by 8.11% y-o-y to $ 99.83 million in August 2022. Export earnings from the Electrical & Electronics Components increased by 14.03 % y-o-y to US$ 41.86 Mn in August 2022 with strong performance in exports of Insulated Wires & Cables (8.49%) and Other Electrical & Electronic Products (24.41%). Export earnings from Seafood increased by 37.04% to US$ 25.53 Mn in August 2022 compared to August 2021. Further, export earnings from Ornamental fish increased by 140.63% to US$ 2.31 Mn in August 2022 compared to August 2021.
In addition, export earnings from Spices and Essential Oils increased by 0.8% to US$ 40.11 Mn. On monthly analysis, except shell products export earnings of kernel products and fiber products categorized under the Coconut based products decreased by 10.79% and 7.55% respectively in August 2022 compared to August 2021.
For the period of January - August 2022, merchandise exports increased by 12.04% to US$ 8,853.Million compared to the corresponding period of 2021. Apparel & Textile exports increased by 19.3% to US$ 4,082.81 Mn during the period of January to August 2022. Export earnings from Rubber & Rubber finished products slightly decreased by 0.46% to US$ 705.7 Mn in January – August 2022. Meanwhile, earnings from export of Electrical and Electronic Components (EEC) increased by 11.87 % to US$ 311.17 Mn in the period.
Export earnings from Seafood increased by 13.83% to US$ 188.36 Mn in the period of January to August 2022. In addition, earnings from export of ornamental fish increased by 9.76% to US$ 13.83 Mn. For the period of January to August 2022, export earnings from Coconut & Coconut based products expanded by 6.37% to US$ 572.71 Mn. However, export earnings from Tea decreased by 7.16% to US$ 819.31 Mn during the period of January to August 2022.
Strong Export Growth recorded for top 10 export markets in the period of January to August 2022. The single largest export destination of United States of America recorded US$ 2,308.75 Mn worth of exports in the period of January to August 2022– a significant year on year increase of 21.19 % in comparison to US$ 1,905.02 Mn recorded in 2021. Exports to United Kingdom as the second largest trading partner recorded an increase of 12.91 % to US$ 682.56 Mn during the period of January to August 2022.
On a region wise comparison exports to all regions except Asean and CIS countries increased during the period of January to August 2022 compared with the corresponding period of 2021. During the period of January to August 2022, breakdown of exports to the top five EU markets which accounted for 80% of Sri Lanka’s total exports to the EU were; Germany US$ 514.75 Mn (increased by 6.93%), Italy US$ 414.26 Mn (increased by 10.95 %), Netherlands US$ 274.28 Mn (increased by 1.53%), Belgium US$ 215.49 Mn (increased by 0.27%) and France US$ 177.78 Mn. (increased by 16.4%).
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