{"id":58793,"date":"2016-09-16T15:10:44","date_gmt":"2016-09-16T22:10:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=58793"},"modified":"2016-09-16T15:10:44","modified_gmt":"2016-09-16T22:10:44","slug":"sri-lankas-quarterly-growth-slows-amid-interest-rate-increase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/09\/16\/sri-lankas-quarterly-growth-slows-amid-interest-rate-increase\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka\u2019s Quarterly Growth Slows Amid Interest Rate Increase"},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-view-uid=\"1|0_3_1_4\">\n<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>By\u00a0<a class=\"author-link\" style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/authors\/AHB1_ab_grE\/anusha-ondaatjie\" rel=\"author\" data-tracker-category=\"nav\" data-tracker-label=\"author_link\" data-tracker-action=\"click\">Anusha Ondaatjie<\/a>\u00a0Courtesy Bloomberg.com<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<ul class=\"article-abstract\">\n<li class=\"article-abstract__item\">\n<div class=\"article-abstract__item-text\">Island\u2019s 2Q GDP expands 2.6% y\/y versus 4.9% median forecast<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"article-abstract__item\">\n<div class=\"article-abstract__item-text\">Central Bank raised benchmark interest rates in July<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div data-view-uid=\"1|0_3_1_5\">\n<section class=\"article-body\" data-tracker-label=\"body\">\n<div class=\"article-body__social-container\">\n<div class=\"sticky-social-share\" data-tracker-category=\"socialshare\" data-tracker-label=\"stickybar\" data-tracker-events=\"click\">\n<div data-view-uid=\"1|0_3_1_5_1\">\n<div class=\"social-share\">\n<div class=\"bb-social-links\" data-view-uid=\"1|0_3_1_5_1_1\"><a class=\"bb-social-link bb-social-link--facebook\" href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer\/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fbloom.bg%2F2cLm7qW\" target=\"bb-social-popup--facebook\" rel=\"nofollow\" data-view-uid=\"1|0_3_1_5_1_1_1\" data-social-network=\"facebook\" data-tracker-label=\"facebook\" data-tracker-action=\"click\">Share on Facebook<\/a><a class=\"bb-social-link bb-social-link--twitter\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?url=http%3A%2F%2Fbloom.bg%2F2cLm7qW&amp;text=Sri%20Lanka%E2%80%99s%20Quarterly%20Growth%20Slows%20Amid%20Interest%20Rate%20Increase&amp;via=markets\" target=\"bb-social-popup--twitter\" rel=\"nofollow\" data-view-uid=\"1|0_3_1_5_1_1_2\" data-social-network=\"twitter\" data-tracker-label=\"twitter\" data-tracker-action=\"click\">Share on Twitter<\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"social-share__more\">\u00a0Sri Lanka\u2019s gross domestic product expanded less than estimated in the previous quarter, even as central bank Governor\u00a0Indrajit Coomaraswamy raised key interest rates in his first review in July.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-body__content\">\n<h3>Key Points<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Sri Lanka\u2019s April-June GDP grew 2.6% from a year earlier, the Department of Census &amp; Statistics said in a statement in Colombo on Thursday.<\/li>\n<li>That\u2019s slower than the 4.9 percent median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of six economists and compares with 5.2 percent growth in the first quarter<\/li>\n<li>The Central Bank of Sri Lanka kept its standing lending facility rate at 8.5 percent and standing deposit facility rate at 7 percent in August after raising it by 50 basis points in the previous month<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Big Picture<\/h3>\n<div data-view-uid=\"1|0_3_1_5_2\"><\/div>\n<p>The central bank\u2019s tight rate bias is likely to further cloud the growth outlook even as government spending cuts, shrinking trade volumes and floods hurt economic activity. In his latest policy review on Aug. 30, Coomaraswamy said private sector credit remained higher than desired and measures adopted during the first seven months of 2016 will gradually slow expansion in bank lending and support a mid-single digit inflation target.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"inline-image inline-media center \">\n<div class=\"inline-media__unlinked-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.bwbx.io\/images\/users\/iqjWHBFdfxIU\/iR.fzr.cW2F0\/v2\/488x-1.png\" srcset=\"https:\/\/assets.bwbx.io\/images\/users\/iqjWHBFdfxIU\/iR.fzr.cW2F0\/v2\/488x-1.png 488w, https:\/\/assets.bwbx.io\/images\/users\/iqjWHBFdfxIU\/iR.fzr.cW2F0\/v2\/628x-1.png 628w, https:\/\/assets.bwbx.io\/images\/users\/iqjWHBFdfxIU\/iR.fzr.cW2F0\/v2\/750x-1.png 750w, https:\/\/assets.bwbx.io\/images\/users\/iqjWHBFdfxIU\/iR.fzr.cW2F0\/v2\/-1x-1.png 1200w\" width=\"731\" height=\"411\" data-attachment-key=\"303824493\" \/><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<h3>Economist Takeaway<\/h3>\n<h3>Growth will remain challenging in the short-term given the tight monetary policy and fiscal consolidation measures,\u201d said\u00a0Bimanee Meepagala, Colombo-based fund manager at NDB Wealth Management Ltd. The central bank will likely stick to its stance of gauging credit expansion in its rate decisions.\u201d<\/h3>\n<h3>The Details<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Sri Lanka\u2019s industry sub sector rose 2.2 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier and services grew 4.9 percent, while farm sector contracted 5.6 percent<\/li>\n<li>The Colombo consumer price index rose 4.0% in August, slowing from a 5.5 percent gain in July<\/li>\n<li>The\u00a0International Monetary Fund which approved a $1.5 billion loan to Sri Lanka in June, has advised to keep policy rates tight in case of elevated inflationary pressures, sustained private loan-growth and pressure on the rupee<\/li>\n<li>Investors have cheered the IMF loan, coined by Moody\u2019s as ambitious\u201d, boosting the rupee about 2.3 percent from its record low hit in March<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By\u00a0Anusha Ondaatjie\u00a0Courtesy Bloomberg.com Island\u2019s 2Q GDP expands 2.6% y\/y versus 4.9% median forecast Central Bank raised benchmark interest rates in July Share on FacebookShare on Twitter \u00a0Sri Lanka\u2019s gross domestic product expanded less than estimated in the previous quarter, even as central bank Governor\u00a0Indrajit Coomaraswamy raised key interest rates in his first review in July. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58793\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}