Sri Lanka's gross domestic product expanded 7.4 percent adjusted for inflation while nominal output rose to 9,785 billion rupees (74.9 billion US dollars) taking per capita GDP to 3,625 dollars from 3,280 million US dollars a year earlier.

With higher nominal growth, public debt as percentage of GDP fell to 75.5 percent by end 2014 from 78.3 percent in 2013, the Central Bank said in a statement after handing over a copy of its annual report to the Finance Minister.

Foreign debt was down to 57.4 percent of GDP down from 59.4 percent a year with the nominal expansion in GDP but in dollar terms foreign debt rose from 39.9 billion US dollars in 2013 to 43.0 billion US dollars at year end.

Consumer inflation was 2.1 percent down from 3.3 percent as credit growth remained low.

Sri Lanka's credit started to pick up sharply in September as state borrowing added to recovering private credit, Central Bank data showed earlier, putting pressure on the exchange rate and foreign reserves, analysts have said.

The Central Bank said official reserves rose to 8.2 billion US dollars by end 2014, from 7.5 billion US dollars in 2013, registering a surplus in the balance of payments of 1,369 million US dollars.

Analysts have said that the BOP started to turn negative after September 2014, with a sharp pick up in credit.

Sri Lanka rupee which was stable for the first nine month of the year started to depreciate after September.
(EconomyNext)