Despite a curfew imposed to contain COVID-19 on March 20, which was fully lifted on June 28, Sri Lanka’s economy “did not come to a complete standstill” due to continued provision of essential services, imposition of work from home measures, automation of the Colombo Tea Auction and the re-opening of FTZs by April, the CBSL said in its mid-year fiscal position report published on June 30.
Highlighting that over 95 percent of Sri Lanka’s factories have re-opened, the report said that the “apparel industry which employs about 350,000 directly and 400,000 indirectly has been able to re-engineer their business models to produce protective gear and allied garments to meet the growing demand for such equipment,” the report said. “While the lockdown has affected the country’s April 2020 exports to be only around 295 million U.S. dollars, it has improved to almost 695 million U.S. dollars by May 2020, a significant improvement over the previous month,” it added.
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