Sri Lanka wants US$5 billion in digital exports by 2030
Sri Lanka is targeting US$5 billion in digital products and services exports by 2030. Here's what that means for product founders, not just IT services.
BuiltList5 min read
Product founders are part of that number.
Short answer: The Export Development Board is targeting US$5 billion in ICT and digital services exports by 2030, including "digital products and services," not only outsourcing. Official ICT/BPM earnings were about US$1.65 billion in 2025. That gap only closes if Sri Lankan products get found, and sold, outside Sri Lanka.
On 10 November 2026, two rooms in Sri Lanka were talking about the same problem.
In one, the Export Development Board sat down with the Ministry of Digital Economy to plan a national target: US$5 billion in ICT and digital services exports by 2030. In the other, BuiltList Live asked a founder how to sell to customers in the US and UK while building from here.
That is a useful reminder, not a coincidence to overplay. A national export target is a government number. The work of hitting it sits with people who ship products, find buyers and get paid in foreign currency.
What was actually announced
According to Newswire, the discussion was held under the National Export Development Plan (NEDP) 2026–2030. The plan, drafted by the EDB with guidance from the Ministry of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development and technical assistance from the Asian Development Bank, "sets an overall national export target of US$ 36 billion by 2030, including US$ 5 billion from digital products and services."
The EDB published its own account the same day. That wording matters. The target is not only IT services and business process work. It names digital products.
The meeting was chaired by Deputy Minister of Digital Economy Eranga Weeraratne, with Dr Hans Wijayasuriya, EDB Chairman Mangala Wijesinghe and senior officials from GovTech and the ministry also in the room.
What they discussed were proposals, not new laws already in force. The agenda covered work through a Digital Products and Services Advisory Committee, a better way to capture and monitor service-sector export earnings, gaps in foreign-exchange conversion that make those earnings hard to measure, mandatory registration for exporters, and stronger inclusion of services in bilateral and regional trade agreements.
The state is still trying to count this sector properly, and to give digital products a clearer path into trade policy. Founders should watch those moves. They should not wait for them.
The gap, in official numbers
The Newswire report does not give a current baseline. The EDB's own figures do.
In its 26 January 2026 export performance release, the EDB estimated ICT/BPM export earnings at US$1,644.83 million in 2025, up 8.81% from 2024. That is about US$1.65 billion. Reaching US$5 billion by 2030 means roughly tripling official earnings in five years.
That is a steep climb from a services-heavy base. It is not a rounding error.
Measurement is part of why the climb looks messy. The 10 November meeting spent time on how service exports are counted, and on foreign-exchange conversion gaps that leave some earnings out of the official total. Treat US$1.65 billion as the official recorded figure, not as every dollar Sri Lankan tech firms earn.
Products, not just billable hours
Hours of IT work are a real export. They are also hard to triple, especially as AI puts pressure on routine services work.
In October, Dr Hans Wijayasuriya told the Sri Lanka Economic and Investment Summit that the path to US$5 billion would be very challenging. Daily FT reported that he called for a decisive shift from digital services to products and intellectual property, and said Sri Lanka should no longer aim to be a cheap back-office location.
A product that a customer in London, Austin or Singapore can buy, subscribe to or integrate does not need a new hire for every new account. That is how a small team in Colombo, Kandy or Jaffna can contribute to an export number without waiting to become a large services firm.
Discoverability is part of the work
A product only becomes an export if someone outside the founder's chat group can find it, trust it and pay for it.
Too many Sri Lankan products still launch quietly. A post in a WhatsApp group, a few friends, then silence. Buyers, partners and journalists looking for what is being built here do not have an obvious place to look. That is a discoverability problem founders can fix without a new trade agreement.
That is why BuiltList exists. It is a free directory of products, agents and bots built by Sri Lankans. Listing is free. Every submission is reviewed by hand, usually in about 24 hours.
In October 2026 we also shipped Ask AI search, so someone can describe a problem and find a matching product, and a startup map of builders across the island. That month, 72 new products joined the directory. People ran 677 searches that month, and today 190 products are live. The upvote ranking is on the October 2026 monthly page.
None of that is US$5 billion. It is the first unglamorous step: making Sri Lankan products visible, in one place, with a human check behind each listing.
Selling globally is already happening
BuiltList Live episode 1, "Selling to the US & UK from Sri Lanka," was held on 10 November 2026 with Kevin Musprett, founder and CEO of Boring Host AI. He is building a short-term rental product from Sri Lanka and selling to property managers in the US and UK.
The directory already has products aimed beyond a purely local market. Virturing is a programmable telecommunications platform for businesses and developers in Asia, with phone numbers, voice APIs, call routing and AI voice agents.
Spicett connects Sri Lankan spice and tea sellers with buyers around the world.
CropAxis connects Sri Lankan king coconut growers with exporters worldwide.
These are listings, not a claim about anyone's revenue. They show that "built in Sri Lanka" and "sold elsewhere" already sit in the same sentence.
List it, then go sell
A national target does not ship your product, write your first overseas invoice or introduce you to a customer in the UK. Policy can make that easier. It cannot do the work.
If you are building, do the part you control. List the product so people can find it. Write a clear description of what it does and who it is for, including buyers who are not in Sri Lanka. Then go sell.
Building something? List it free on BuiltList. Every submission is reviewed by hand, usually within 24 hours.
Sources: Newswire, 12 November 2026. EDB, on the 10 November meeting, 12 November 2026. EDB export performance, 26 January 2026. Daily FT, 13 October 2026.