The economic growth was mainly due to the growth in industry sector and services sector while the growth in the agriculture sector was slow.

In 2011, the industrial sector grew 10.3 percent and services rose 8.6 percent while the agriculture sector grew only by 1.5 percent.

Sri Lanka's Central Bank earlier projected the country's US$ 59 billion economy to grow 8 percent in 2012, but recently lowered the projection to 7.2 percent.

The Bank attributed the lower growth to the impact of the policy measures implemented by both the government and the Central Bank last month resulting in higher energy costs, decline in credit flows, and lower import related activity.