Weather, debt repayments major challenges for Sri Lanka’s growth in 2018 – ADB
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) says Sri Lanka's economic growth over the next two years will depend on agriculture and the political climate and forecasts a 4.2% growth for this year and 4.8% for 2019 .
While weather is an obvious concern on growth in agriculture, a major challenge for the government is the bunching in 2018-2024 of $22 billion in debt repayments, with $4.2 billion due in 2019, the ADB says in its report Asian Development Outlook (ADO) 2018.
Assuming normal weather in 2018 and 2019, agriculture is expected to rebound to 6.0% growth in 2018 and recover fully in 2019, expanding by 5.6%.
Industry is expected to expand by 3.9% 2018 and 4.5% in 2019, as apparel will benefit from continued strong global growth and GSP+ and Construction will expand on continuing gov...
