According to Ministry of Finance, Sri Lanka has incurred a total of LKR 117.5 billion in 2020 and LKR 53.0 billion during Jan-June of 2021 as expenses on the country’s COVID-19 response.
According to data from the IMF Policy tracker, Sri Lanka’s expenditure on COVID-19 response is much lower than its South Asian peers. Other South Asian countries such as Maldives, India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh have spent 1.4 percent, 2 percent, 2.1 percent, 3.5 percent and 6.9 percent of their GDP respectively on COVID-19 response as of June 2021. In contrast, Sri Lanka has spent only 0.8 percent of its GDP on the country’s COVID-19 response during the same period. This spending has been attributed to just 0.1 percent of GDP on health sector expenditure and 0.7 percent of GDP on non-health sector expenditure.
However, the severity of the Covid 19 has been mostly similar or even worse for Sri Lanka compared to other South Asian nations. The table below shows the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths per million as at 30 June 2021 and the death rate for the above mentioned South Asian countries as reported through data in https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus
Country |
Deaths per million |
Cases per million |
Death rate (Deaths/Cases) |
Maldives |
389 |
136,526 |
0.28% |
India |
289 |
22,037 |
1.31% |
Sri Lanka |
144 |
12,099 |
1.19% |
Afghanistan |
125 |
3,048 |
4.10% |
Pakistan |
101 |
4,339 |
2.33% |
Bangladesh |
88 |
5,545 |
1.59% |
Source: Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 data
Details on Covid-19 Expenditure by each country
The Sri Lankan government has allocated up to 0.1 percent of GDP for containment measures, as well as USD 5 million (0.01 percent of GDP) to the SAARC COVID-19 Emergency Fund. Cash transfers to vulnerable groups amounted to around 0.6 percent of GDP in 2020 and around 0.1 percent of GDP as of June 2021.
In contrast, the COVID-19 responses of some of Sri Lanka’s regional peers were as follows:
Note: There is a small difference in the figure quoted by the IMF compared to the MoF’s estimate. The MoF’s figure, LKR 170 billion, as a share of 2020’s GDP amounts to 1.1% of GDP. Yet, much less than other South Asian countries used for the comparison.
Sources: