Lankan balance of payments improves

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COLOMBO, July 24 (Xinhua): Sri Lanka's balance of payments improved in the first five months of 2007 thanks to growing exports and cash inflows from workers abroad, the central bank said yesterday in a statement.
Exports rose by 14.4 per cent while imports increased at a relatively lower rate of 7.5 per cent during the first five months of the year, bringing the trade deficit down by 4.1 per cent to 1.42 billion US dollars.
"In addition, a continuous healthy growth has been recorded in worker remittances, offsetting the impact of the trade balance on the current account balance," the statement added.
Some 1.2 million Sri Lankans employed abroad remitted 241 billion rupees (about 2.41 billion US dollars) in 2006.
During the first five months of 2007, private remittances from Sri Lankan expatriates grew by 17.1 per cent to 1.09 billion dollars from the same period of last year.
The balance of payments has recorded an estimated surplus of 192 million dollars by the end of June while the gross official reserves has been estimated at 2.72 billion dollars or 3.1 months of imports.
However, the bank warned that point to point inflation may increase temporarily in July due to price hikes in some items.
The inflation was down to 13 per cent in June from 13.7 per cent in May.