June 27, 2007 (LBO) – Areas bordering Sri Lanka's western province, which is open to the world and has good infrastructure, grew fastest last year with a rapidly advancing service sector, the Central Bank has said. "In contrast, all the other provinces had per capita value added below the country average, ranging between 0.8 in the North Western Province and 0.5 in the Northern Province." Nominal economic growth (without adjusting for inflation) was 16.8 percent in the western province itself, but the four bordering provinces collectively grew by 21.7 percent in 2006, with national growth at 18.4 percent.
Border Ring
"As in the rest of the country, the growth in the region was largely driven by the expansion of services sector contributing around 55 percent of the growth in the region, while agriculture sector accounted for a quarter of the growth and the industry sector contributing the balance 20 percent," the central bank said.
The region, made up of the North Western, Southern, Sabaragamuwa and Central Provinces had a share of 34 percent of the valued added in the economy last year as measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) against 50.1 percent for the Western province.
In 2005 the we
