Figures released recently by Sri Lanka’s Central Bank reveal an increase in bank lending to the private sector (see p6 here). But an industry body said this week major exporters were not borrowing  as they are gloomy about economic prospects.

What could this contradiction mean?

This is what US Ambassador to Colombo, Ms. Patricia Butenis, said Monday at the opening of the American Corner in Jaffna:

“Not everyone may realize that Americans have a long relationship with the people of Jaffna.

Despite credit being readily available, Sri Lanka’s exporters say they don’t want to borrow because they can’t expand their businesses in the present economic conditions - despite the end of the war.

“Exporters are not borrowing because they are not expanding,” National Chamber of Exporters (NCE) President Sarath de Silva said last week.

High electricity tariffs, the loss of trade concessions from the EU and US, and a stronger rupee made it difficult to survive in the global export market, he said.

After the worst floods in almost a century,

“The average ten-year-old in eastern Sri Lanka has lived through conflict, the tsunami and now risks facing a food crisis in the coming weeks.

"As the people of Jaffna seek to resurrect their lives after years of armed conflict, the Government and the people of India remain committed to facilitate development in the region."

"There is a special place in this relationship for age-old and time-tested bonds between the Jaffna peninsula of Sri Lanka and India."

- Indian high commissioner to Sri Lanka Ashok K Kantha. (See PTI’s report here).

"RSF finds it highly disturbing that literature is being celebrated in this manner in a land where cartoonists, journalists, writers and dissident voices are so often victimised by the current government."

“The failure of [Sri Lanka's] policing system to protect victims and witnesses - and its tendency to undermine rather than reinforce their rights - precludes the development of public trust in law enforcement, the judicial system, and the state.”