ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka’s Employees Provident Fund, a retirement fund for private sector and some state enterprise workers has paid 10 percent in interest and dividend to members in 2024, a Finance Ministry report shows.
The same nominal return was paid in 2023.
But the 10 percent in 2024 indicates a higher return than normal, with the central bank missing its 5 percent target to increase the cost of living in 2024 and maintaining monetary stability with the inflation index falling by 1.7 percent compared to a 4 percent increase in 2023.
In 2022 when inflation hit 57.2 percent after aggressive direct and open market operations and float of the rupee buckled by a surrender rule, the dividend and interest was only 8.75 percent, representing a severe loss of real pension funds from flexible discretionary (flexible) monetary policy.
The Employees Provident Fund managed by the central bank paid a higher return of 11 percent to members in 2024.
RELATED Sri Lanka EPF pays record real returns as central bank misses inflation target
In 2024 the EPF earned 65,988 million rupees in income mainly from interest on government securities, slightly lower than 67,793 million in 2023.
With 2,811 rupees of expenses, flat from 2,834 million a year earlier, the ETF made a pre-tax profit of 63,177 billion rupees.
Interest of 3 percent was paid on member balance taking up 15,391 million rupees and 35,911 was paid as dividends taking the total return to 10 percent.
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