Sri Lanka's exports top $1bln mark for consecutive month

Sri Lanka's exports have surpassed the 1 billion U.S. dollar mark for the second consecutive month, reaffirming resilience despite major challenges, the Industry and Commerce Ministry said in a statement Friday. Exports in November amounted to 1.054 million U.S. dollars, up by 5.8 percent over the corresponding month of the previous year. In October, exports reached the previous best of 1.04 billion U. S. dollars. It was the first time exports crossed the 1 billion dollar mark. Year-on-year October recorded a 35 percent increase, the highest growth rate recorded since May 2011. "The trend of export surge continues. Our latest November export values support October's record exports. It also shows a year-on-year rise of more than 5 percent," Industry and Commerce Minister Rishad Bathiudeen said. In a statement, the Ministry said according to the Export Development Board's latest provisional export values, October's historic trend appears to continue in November. Meanwhile, 2013 January to November exports (provisional) totaled a strong 9.42 billion, resulting in a year on year increase of 5.18 percent in comparison to 2012. Within the month of November 2013, the leading growth drivers were Industrial Products and Unclassified Products. Industrial Products grew by 3.42 percent in November over October to 783.05 million U.S. dollars while Unclassified Products grew by 7.91 percent to 16.23 million U.S. dollars. Within Industrial Products, sub categories of diamonds, gems and jewellery, apparels, leather, chemical products, plastic products, footwear and electronic, electrical, machinery products and parts steered growth. Apparels, Sri Lanka's largest export, strongly grew by 12.76 percent to 489.99 million U.S dollars in November. On a year-on-year basis, top three major export regions of Sri Lanka remained in the same ascending order throughout 2011-13, namely European Union, U.S. and the Middle East.