SL earns $ 7.7 b on exports - EDB Chairman

Sri Lanka has achieved over 80 percent of this year’s exports target and earned $7.7 b by September, a 27 percent increase compared to the same period in 2010, said EDB chairman Janaka Rathnayake.

Our exporters achieved these encouraging results, despite constraints and challenges they faced domestically and overseas. The resilience shown to sustain export growth is commendable, he said. He was speaking at the inaugural ceremony of the 26th Governing Council of Infofish in Colombo last week.

Rathnayake said that as the apex export promoting body, the EDB has directed market strategies to capture more shares in the export market by focusing on products having high growth trends. The fish and fishery product sector have been identified in the EDB plan for 2010-2015 as a priority product sector which can be developed to earn $ one b as export earnings. In 2010, Sri Lanka earned $ 202 m from the fisheries sector and it has slightly dropped this year due to domestic market issues, Rathnayake said. GW