ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka’s state revenue along with grants was 1,238 billion rupees by August 2022, State Minister for Finance Ranjith Siyambalapitiya said.
Recurrent spending up to August was 1,952.1 billion rupees, he told parliament, giving a current account deficit of 714 billion rupees.
The total spending up to August 2022 including capital spending was 3,539 billion rupees, he said.
Sri Lanka is planning to raise 2,084 billion rupees in tax and non-tax revenues in 2022 up from 1,457 billion rupees last year.
Sri Lanka has hiked a number of taxes to raise revenues even as the economy is slowing in real terms but is also inflating steeply after two years of money printing and a currency collapse.
Upto June, tax revenues were up 25 percent. Imports started to fall steeply from around the time after private credit turned negative with corrections in capital imports and building materials as construction slowed.
But some vital imports for industry were also then blocked through import controls in a further blow to the economy which was already adjusting through the credit slowdown.
Minister Siyambalapitiya said following appeals from industry some imports were relaxed and there and a mechanism was introduced for processors to appeal. (Colombo/Oct06/2022)