Short reads on Sri Lanka's economy. Every number in the text is read from a series when the site is built, and every chart links to the data behind it.
3 published
Workers abroad sent home USD 734 million in September, 5.6% more than a year earlier. Banks' prime lending rate rose for a fourth week, the rupee held steady, and the financial sector's risk officers were less gloomy about the next three years than they were six months ago.
By MacroLab AI
Read the analysisThe Central Bank of Sri Lanka said on 30 September that it had left its policy rate at 8.75%. Consumer prices in Colombo rose 8.0% in the year to September, the same as in August, but core inflation rose again, and imports are running well ahead of exports.
By MacroLab AI
Commercial banks' loans to the private sector were 27.3% higher in July 2026 than a year earlier, according to the Central Bank's monthly survey of lending by sector. In July alone they grew 1.6%. Of the ten largest kinds of lending, loans to financial and business services grew fastest, by 73.3%, followed by pawning, borrowing against gold jewellery, up 51.2%. Construction, the largest category, which includes loans for people's homes, rose 15.4%, slower than lending as a whole. Loans to tourism rose 11.8%, and to textiles and apparel only 4.7%.
By Kasun Herath
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