The tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka were recorded at 26,912 in the first week of April, the provisional data from the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority showed.

Everyone must join to support the recovery and promote stable and inclusive growth, to tackle the economic challenge Sri Lanka is facing, International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Senior Mission Chief for Sri Lanka Peter Breuer said.

Sri Lanka’s heightened fiscal, external, and financial sector imbalances and its fluid political situation pose significant uncertainty for the country’s economic outlook, says the World Bank in its twice-a-year update.

Sri Lanka has collected 11.93 billion rupees in advance personal income tax in March 2023, up from 3.1 billion rupees in January, Commissioner General of Inland Revenue D R S Hapuarachchi has said.

Earnings from the tourism industry exceeded half a billion dollars in the first quarter of 2023, in tandem with the record number of arrivals Sri Lanka welcomed in first three months of the year.

The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce o welcomed the moves to liberalise the petroleum sector but stressed the Government should also pursue reconciliation and economic reforms with equal vigour.

The Government has been urged to effectively communicate the reforms intended to address via the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Extended Fund Facility for the broader population without limiting it to the English-speaking elite crowd in Colombo.

The United States is supporting Sri Lanka’s economic recovery, the US Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Julie Chung said.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) Deputy Country Director Utsav Kumar this week outlined five areas Sri Lanka must focus on to succeed in the US$3 billion Extended Fund Facility (EFF) extended by the IMF, adding the country has a long road to recovery.