On November 21, President Anura Kumara Dissanayaka presented the policy statement of the National People’s Power (NPP) government to Parliament during the inaugural session of the Tenth Parliament. The team fact-checked four statements from President Dissanayaka’s speech, all of which were rated as TRUE.
Number 1
Fact-check: The IT sector is defined as ICT and BPM.
CBSL External Sector data reported IT sector exports as USD 1.227 Bn in 2023. Within this, ICT accounted for USD 917 Mn, while BPM contributed USD 310 Mn.
The IT sector accounts for 7% of Sri Lanka’s total goods and services exports, and 23% of only services exports.
Globally, Sri Lanka’s ICT/BPM exports ranked 72nd out of 139 countries in 2022, accounting for a mereonly 0.04% of total worldwide ICT/BPM exports.
Curious about the relative size of Sri Lanka’s IT sector? It accounts for 7% of Sri Lanka’s total goods and services exports, and 23% of services exports. Globally, Sri Lanka’s ICT/BPM exports ranked 72nd out of 139 countries in 2022, accounting for only 0.04% of total worldwide ICT/BPM exports.
Sources: https://cbsl.gov.lk/en/statistics/statistical-tables/external-sector
https://trademap.org/Index.aspx
Number 2
Fact-check: ‘Professionals related to the IT sector’ are referred to as ‘IT workforce’.
SLASSCOM data cites Sri Lanka’s IT workforce as 88,051 individuals. The president’s statement approximates this figure.
Curious about more numbers on Sri Lanka’s IT workforce? Check out fact-check on President Dissanayake’s recent statement: https://factcheck.lk/factcheck/9341/
Source: https://old.slasscom.lk/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/State-of-the-industry-report.pdf
Number 3
Fact-check: 2022 Provincial Gross Domestic Product (latest available) data by CBSL shows that the WP accounts for 43.4% of Sri Lanka’s national GDP.
WP is the largest contributor among the country’s nine provinces. It is 3.87x more than the second highest contributor (North Western). WP also ranks highest in per capita terms.
Number 4
Fact-check: CBSL External Sector data shows that 2018 recorded the highest value for tourism earnings (USD 4,381,000) and tourism arrivals (2,333,796).
Curious about how tourism earnings are calculated? Check out Verité Research’s insight: https://veriteresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/VR_EN_Insights_Sep2022_Tourism-Could-Not-Have-Solved-Sri-Lankas-Foreign-Exchange-Problem.pdf
