SLBFE records highest revenue

Lakshmi DE SILVA

The Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment recorded the highest earnings in its history during 2008 by earning around Rs. 530 million, more than the average amount of Rs. 230 million in previous years. The Bureau has also changed the trend of sending more males in skilled and semi-skilled categories, Chairman Kingsley Ranawaka told the Daily News yesterday.

Up to now, it was a female dominant foreign employment sector with 53 to 54 percent female labour force was recorded, but with the changes of thinking introduced by the Mahinda Chintana policies, it had now taken a new trend in encouraging more males to go for employment abroad, Ranawaka said.

Last year the number of departures for foreign employment was increased to 252,021 compared to 218,459 in 2007.

And the departures of house maids also had declined to 43.1 percent in 2008 from 46.9 percent in the previous year the Central Bank report said.

The total foreign remittances amounted to US Dollars 2918 million in 2008, an increase of 16.6 percent compared to US Dollars 2,502 million received during 2007, according to the annual report 2008.