Sri Lanka gets World Bank help to improve economic statistics, oversight

July 21, 2008 (LBO) - Sri Lanka is getting a 22.6 million US dollar credit from the World Bank's concessionary window to improve the government statistics and audit offices, the multilateral lender said. "This project will help the government to further strengthen statistical capacity and audit functions which are at the core of public administration and public financial management," Naoko Ishii, World Bank country director in Sri Lanka, said in a statement.

"It will indirectly support Sri Lanka’s development framework, by providing better infrastructure for policy decision making and monitoring."

The World Bank says sound economic growth led by the private sector critically depends on the efficiency and productivity of the public sector.

"The government has taken several measures to strengthen the public sector capacity and efficiency in recent years in the fields of tax administration, trade and investment, legal, and banking," the World Bank said.

"Initial steps to improve such core functions as statistical capacity and audit functions have been taken."

The World Bank project comes as the country's economic statistics are increasingly being questioned by private sector ana