Sri Lanka's Central Bank Governor Nivard Cabraal has said full year growth is likely to be a little over eight percent.
The statistics office said agriculture grew 6.2 percent in the third quarter up from 6.0 percent a year earlier, industry grew 10.8 percent up from 8.8 percent and service grew 7.8 percent down from 8.0 percent last year.
In Agriculture, export crops of tea contracted 6.9 percent from a year earlier, rubber grew 2.2 percent, coconut grew 5.1 percent. Paddy grew 12.4 percent. Fishing expanded 17.3 percent with inland fishing growing 32.3 percent and marine fishing up 14.3 percent.
Factory industry grew 7.9 percent with apparels growing 10.2 percent, chemicals and petroleum grew 8.1 percent, electricity grew 7.0 percent and construction grew 17.3 percent, the statistics office said.
In services, the largest sector, hotels and restaurants grew 27.2 percent, wholesale and retail trade grew 9.5 percent, telecoms grew 8.4 percent, ports and aviation grew 1.3 percent and banking and finance grew 7.4 percent.
The evidence is pretty clear (except for the one anomalous piece about the percentage spent on food going up by a few percentage points). People are living better today than they did a decade ago.