With regard to sovereign bonds, due to just the significant delay in the restructuring process, we will have to pay an additional USD 1.7 billion as outstanding interest…What I would like to highlight is that we had to pay an unnecessary amount as interest due to these negotiations.

[…] The gap between export earnings and import expenditure is gradually widening due to the country lifting all import bans except for vehicle imports in the recent past. […] The trade deficit of the first nine months of this year is USD 1,141 million more than last year’s.

Raising the state revenue to 13.1% [of GDP] was not a challenge… [for the new NPP government].

This [NPP] government too is doing the same thing that was done by the previous Gotabaya Rajapaksa administration. […] At the moment, the Central Bank is using the methods of term auctions and overnight auctions to print money. LKR 36.16 billion was printed last Friday [October 25] through the overnight auction. LKR 70 billion has been printed within the 7 days of the past week through the term auction. Excess liquidity has increased by LKR 55.4 billion in the past month [September].

Last year, service exports recorded 3.1 billion dollars in revenue compared to 2022, reflecting a 69% growth, mainly driven by ICT, logistics, transport and construction.