Sri Lanka’s total public debt ratio increased to 88.9 pct – Finance Minister

Jan 31, 2015 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Total Debt to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio would increase to 88.9 percent from reported 74.4 percent of the government debt in the end 2014, the Finance Minister has said. According to the provisional data, the outstanding debt of the government as at end 2014 was LKR 7,373 billion, which reflects a per capita debt of LKR 357,233.

The new government says the total debt will increase to LKR 8,817 billion and the per capita debt will also increase to about LKR 427,220 for the last year.

You can see the magnitude of the burden that has been created by the previous government on the people of this country, Finance Minister of Sri Lanka Ravi Karunanayake said.

He said the data presented in 2015 budget do not reflected the real burden of the public finance.

The original Budget 2015 expected total revenue of LKR 1,594 billion, which consisted of LKR 1,400 billion of tax revenue and LKR 194 billion of non- tax revenue.

Total expenditure and net lending was LKR 2,990 billion of which recurrent expenditure was LKR 1,465 billion.

Capital expenditure and net lending was LKR 685 billion. The estimated deficit in Budget 2015 was LKR 521 billion or 4.6