High 3Q growth in all sectors

The Department of Census and Statistics said the country’s GDP growth rate was 6.3 per cent for the third quarter of 2008 compared to a growth of seven per cent for the same quarter of the last year.

The inflation rate for the total economy was 18.5 per cent for the third quarter of 2008 which is based on GDP Implicit Price.

In Rupee terms, the unit price of total imports increased by 23.3 per cent and the total value of imports as a percentage share to GDP is 34.7 percent for the reference period.

In Rupee terms, the unit price of total exports increased by 4.9 per cent for the reference period and the total value of exports as a percentage share to GDP is 20.9 per cent.

The total Agriculture sector has recorded 12.4 per cent growth for this reference period. This Yala season which falls under third quarter of 2008 have reported a second highest increase of 50.5 per cent in production of paddy since independence.

In real terms the value addition for Tea increased by 1.4 per cent in the third quarter of 2008. The World economic and monetary crisis was affected the Tea industry from mid September. The value addition of Rubber has increased by 14.8 per cent in the third quarter of 2008. An increase of 6.6 per cent was estimated for coconut in this quarter.

The vegetable production was 6.3 per cent growth rate for the reference period. The Minor export crops indicated a growth rate of 5.1 per cent for the reference period. Value addition for Livestock went up by 5.6 per cent.

For this quarter, growth rate for Fish production is 28.6 per cent.

The growth rate of industry sector was 5.6 per cent in this reference period.

Mining and Quarrying sub sector grew by 15.6 per cent. The sub sector of manufacturing industry indicates a 5 per cent growth rate for this quarter.

The factory industry also grew by 5.0 per cent and the growth rate of processing industry was 6.4 per cent for the reference period. The textiles, garments and leather industry grew by 4.2 per cent as against that of 7.9 per cent for the same period in last year.

The share of export value of textile and garments has recorded 40.6 per cent out of the total exports for the reference period of third quarter 2008.

In rupee terms, the value of total Industrial Exports increased by 1.3 percent. The value of exports of textiles and garments increased by 1.0 percent.

The growth rate for the sub sector of Electricity, Gas and Water was -0.6 per cent in real terms.

The total power generation increased 0.4 per cent for the reference period. The hydropower generation contributed 38.0 per cent for the total power generation.

In real terms, the construction industry indicates 6.9 per cent growth for this quarter and it was 9 per cent in the third quarter of previous year. The total cement production has increased from 873,267 Mt. to 905,983 Mt. by 3.7 per cent in this quarter.

The service sector has increased by 5.5 per cent in the third quarter of 2008.

In real terms, the Wholesale and retail trade sector grew by 4.9 per cent in this quarter. The real value of trade margins of import trade and export trade grew by 5.4 per cent and 1 per cent for the reference period respectively.