Publication: Sri Lanka Development Update, June 2017
Loading...
Published
2017-06-27
ISSN
Date
2017-06-30
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
The Sri Lanka Development Update has two main aims. First, it reports on the key developments over the past six months in Sri Lanka’s economy, and places these in a longer term and global context. Based on these developments, and on policy changes over the period, it updates the outlook for Sri Lanka’s economy and social welfare. Second, the Update provides a more in-depth examination of selected economic and policy issues, and analysis of medium-term development challenges. It is intended for a wide audience, including policymakers, business leaders, financial market participants, and the community of analysts and professionals engaged in Sri Lanka’s evolving economy.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank. 2017. Sri Lanka Development Update, June 2017. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/27519 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Sri Lanka Development Update, June 2018(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-06)Recent policy measures have contributed to macroeconomic stability. However, with significant risks stemming from both domestic and external fronts, the balance of risks is tilted towards downside. To sustain growth, create more and better jobs and reduce poverty Sri Lanka needs to implement and sustain structural reforms to improve competitiveness. This Special Focus section looks at the state of jobs and the job creation challenge in Sri Lanka compared to the South Asian Region and zooms in on labor force participation of women and in Sri Lanka’s post-conflict areas.Publication Kenya Economic Update, June 2012(World Bank, Nairobi, 2012-06)In 2012, Kenya's economy has been on a tightrope. Policy makers have had to walk a fine line between stabilizing the economy and maintaining the growth momentum. While inflation has declined, the exchange rate stabilized, and the fiscal position improved, fundamental economic imbalances continue to make Kenya vulnerable to shocks. In the absence of economic and social turbulence, Kenya should grow at 5 percent in 2012 and 2013, which will still be substantially below its neighbors. Kenya has been benefitting from the integration and growth momentum in the East African Community (EAC), which has become one of the most vibrant economic regions in the world. However, despite impressive increases in trade between the five EAC partners in recent years, there is still a large untapped potential. EAC trade can increase several-fold if unnecessary restrictions in the trade of goods and services particularly nontariff barriers were removed.Publication Maldives Development Update, June 2020(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-06)Following three consecutive years of growth above 6 percent, the Maldivian economy kept momentum in 2019. Preliminary estimates indicate that real GDP decelerated slightly to 5.3 percent, from 6.9 percent in the previous year. Tourist arrivals reached a record high of 1.7 million, a 14.7 percent increase from 2018. Strong tourism growth compensated for softer construction activity, which grew by only 3.1 percent as many large infrastructure projects were completed in late 2018. This marked the slowest rate of construction growth since the public investment boom began in 2014. The global pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has impacted the Maldives’ economy more than any other country in South Asia. Although the Government acted quickly to protect lives, barring incoming travelers from affected areas as early as February 3 and closing its borders on March 27, a substantial domestic outbreak commenced on April 15. As this report is being written, nearly 2,000 people have tested positive for COVID-19 and 8 have lost their lives to the disease. The real toll of the pandemic, however, is much higher, with thousands of livelihoods affected by the shutdown of tourism. Tourist arrivals fell by 11.1 and 63.4 percent year-on-year (y-on-y) in February and March respectively and remained at zero for the entire second quarter. Cumulatively, the 65 percent y-on-y fall in tourist arrivals from February-May 2020 exceeds the decline in tourist arrivals experienced in the four months after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Construction has also been affected, as half the COVID-19 cases affect Bangladeshi nationals, many of whom work in the sector, and as external financing has dried up.Publication Sri Lanka Development Update, November 2017(Washington, DC, 2017-11-01)Despite significant challenges, Sri Lanka's economic performance remained broadly satisfactory in the first half of 2017. The corrective policy measures taken in the monetary and fiscal fronts have led to gradual stabilization. The construction sector's rapid recovery supported by a strong rebound in investment was partially able to mitigate the impact of inclement weather conditions on the real sector. External buffers strengthened thanks to foreign exchange purchases and improved capital flows. Inflation has risen since the second half of 2016 on account of drought and changes to the VAT Act. Authorities pursued the economic reform agenda presented in the government policy statements, albeit at a slower pace, owing to the difficulties faced in a complex political environment and institutional constraints on policy implementation. Parliament passed a new Inland Revenue Law in September 2017, which marks a key milestone towards sustainable revenue-led fiscal consolidation.Publication Bhutan Development Update, June 2018(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-06)Bhutan maintained solid growth and macroeconomic stability during 2016/17. The national poverty headcount rate fell from 12 percent in 2012 to 8 percent in 2017. However, the job challenges remained unaddressed. the youth unemployment rate increased from 10.7 percent in 2015 to 13.2 percent in 2016 indicating that high growth was not able to generate enough jobs for youth.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Impact of Migration on Economic and Social Development : A Review of Evidence and Emerging Issues(2011-02-01)This paper provides a review of the literature on the development impact of migration and remittances on origin countries and on destination countries in the South. International migration is an ever-growing phenomenon that has important development implications for both sending and receiving countries. For a sending country, migration and the resulting remittances lead to increased incomes and poverty reduction, and improved health and educational outcomes, and promote economic development. Yet these gains might come at substantial social costs to the migrants and their families. Since many developing countries are also large recipients of international migrants, they face challenges of integration of immigrants, job competition between migrant and native workers, and fiscal costs associated with provision of social services to the migrants. This paper also summarizes incipient discussions on the impacts of migration on climate change, democratic values, demographics, national identity, and security. In conclusion, the paper highlights a few policy recommendations calling for better integration of migration in development policies in the South and the North, improving data collection on migration and remittance flows, leveraging remittances for improving access to finance of recipient households and countries, improving recruitment mechanisms, and facilitating international labor mobility through safe and legal channels.Publication The Role of Social Ties in Factor Allocation(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2019-10)We investigate whether social structure helps or hinders factor allocation using unusually rich data from the Gambia. Evidence indicates that land available for cultivation is allocated unequally across households; and that factor transfers are more common between neighbors, co-ethnics, and kinship-related households. Does this lead to the conclusion that land inequality is due to flows of land between households being impeded by social divisions? To answer this question, a novel methodology that approaches exhaustive data on dyadic flows from an aggregate point of view is introduced. Land transfers lead to a more equal distribution of land and to more comparable factor ratios across households in general. But equalizing transfers of land are not more likely within ethnic or kinship groups. In conclusion, ethnic and kinship divisions do not hinder land and labor transfers in a way that contributes to aggregate factor inequality. Labor transfers do not equilibrate factor ratios across households. But it cannot be ruled out that they serve a beneficial role, for example, to deal with unanticipated health shocks.Publication MIGA Annual Report 2013 : Insuring Investments, Ensuring Opportunities(Washington, DC: World Bank Group, 2013-10-11)In fiscal year 2013, Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) issued 2.8 billion dollars in investment guarantees for projects in our developing member countries. At 1.5 billion dollars, representing more than half of new business, the bulk of MIGA's guarantees issued support investments in Sub-Saharan Africa. Sixty-nine percent of new business volume this year was in complex projects in infrastructure and extractive industries, a strategic priority for the Agency. This year, 82 percent of MIGA's new volume fell into one or more of strategic priority areas: investments in the world's poorest countries, "South-South" investments, investments in conflict-affected countries, and investments in complex projects. MIGA also established the conflict-affected and fragile economies facility to further deepen support to this priority area.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication The Firm-Level Impact of the Covid–19 Pandemic(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-09-02)The World Bank commissioned a firm-level survey to provide quantitative evidence of the impact of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Two rounds of data have now been collected for the months of March and May using a nationally representative World Bank survey providing information on the impact of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The survey includes five hundred firms spanning a wide range of industries and firm sizes, as well as the formal and informal sector. This note provides a snapshot of how the firms’ outcomes and response to the pandemic have changed between the months of March and May 2020.