Western province continued to account for the largest share as per the Provincial Gross Domestic Product (PGDP)  estimated by the Statistics Department of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) for 2018. Central and North Western provinces were the second and the third highest contributors, respectively.

The highest increase in PGDP share on year-on-year basis was reported in Western province. The only other province that reported an increase was North Central province. The shares of Central, Sabaragamuwa and Uva provinces decreased in 2018, while the shares of North Western, Southern, Eastern and Northern provinces remained unchanged. 

Over the past eleven months, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka has taken a number of monetary and regulatory policy measures to induce a reduction in market lending rates. These measures include the reduction of the Standing Deposit Facility Rate (SDFR) and the Standing Lending Facility Rate (SLFR) of the Central Bank by 100 basis points in two steps, the reduction of the Statutory Reserve Ratio (SRR) applicable on rupee deposit liabilities of Licensed Commercial Banks (LCBs) by 2.50 percentage points that released around Rs. 150 billion of additional liquidity to the financial market, and the imposition of caps on rupee deposit interest rates offered by licensed financial institutions that enabled them to reduce the cost of mobilising funds from the general public.