By Asantha Sirimanne Sri Lanka to publish accurate private savings number

Domestic savings are made up from central government savings, state enterprise and private entities. A deficit in the current account of the budget is net spending or 'dis-saving', and can be readily seen. In 2012 the deficit in the current account was 1.4 percent of gross domestic product, while the so-called private savings was 18.4 percent of GDP. Because the government was a net spender, domestic savings were reduced to 17.0 percent of GDP. But inside the so-called private savings are also state enterprises which are running very large losses and contributing to dragging down private, domestic and also national savings, when losses exceed surpluses. "At the moment we have the classification central government and private sector," deputy Central Bank Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe told reporters and new briefing on Monday. "State owned enterprises come under the private sector." Weerasinghe said the central bank will be able to publish a separate numbers for state and private enterprises. "Yes, we might be able to," he said. "We can get the information on state enterprises separately, whether they save or dis-save." He said several state firms made profits, but in the last three years large losses in state energy utilities tended to overshadow the profits. Central Bank Governor Nivard Cabraal said the separate classification would be useful. In East Asia separate numbers for private savings are available. Though countries like Malaysia have run bad budgets especially since 2009, in a mistaken policy of 'stimulus' which had now brought Europe to its knees, their historically high savings rates came from government surpluses. Malaysia sold off its loss making private enterprises from the early 1980s and ran surpluses in the central government budget, state governments and state enterprises contributing to the high domestic savings rate. Contrary to the 'established fact' that is often bandied about in Sri Lanka's the island's private savings rate is not low. Sri Lanka also does not yet publish an overall deficit for the public sector involving non-financial public sector enterprises. Financial institutions which are always net 'borrowers' from the public are excluded. Several state agencies are now borrowing on their own making such a number more useful, analysts say.