s
a more statist economic approach, which seeks to reduce poverty by
steering investment to disadvantaged areas, developing small and
medium enterprises, promoting agriculture, and expanding the already
enormous civil service. The government has halted privatizations.
Although suffering a brutal civil war that began in 1983, Sri Lanka
saw GDP growth average 4.5% in the last 10 years with the exception
of a recession in 2001. In late December 2004, a major tsunami took
about 31,000 lives, left more than 6,300 missing and 443,000
displaced, and destroyed an estimated $1.5 billion worth of
property. Government spending and reconstruction drove growth to
more than 7% in 2006 but reduced agriculture output probably slowed
growth to about 6 percent in 2007. Government spending and loose
monetary policy drove inflation to nearly 16% in 2007. Sri Lanka's
most dynamic sectors now are food processing, textiles and apparel,
food and beverages, port construction, telecommunications, and
insurance and banking. In 2006, plantation crops made up only about
15% of exports (compared with more than 90% in 1970), while textiles
and garments accounted for more than 60%. About 800,000 Sri Lankans
work abroad, 90% of them in the Middle East. They send home more
than $1 billion a year. The struggle by the Tamil Tigers of the
north and east for an independent homeland continues to cast a
shadow over the economy.

Sudan
Sudan's economy is booming on the back of increases in oil
production, high oil prices, and large inflows of foreign direct
investment. GDP growth registered more than 10% per year in 2006 and
2007. From 1997 to date, Sudan has been working with the IMF to
implement macroeconomic reforms, including a managed float of the
exchange rate. Sudan began exporting crude oil in the last quarter
of 1999. Agricultural production remains important, because it
employs 80% of the work force and contributes a third of GDP. The
Darfur conflict, the aftermath of two decades of civil war in the
south, the lack of basic infrastructure in large areas, and a
reliance by much of the population on subsistence agriculture ensure
much of the population will remain at or below the poverty line for
years despite rapid rises in average per capita income. In January
2007, the government introduced a new currency, the Sudanese Pound,
at an initial exchange rate of $1.00 equals 2 Sud