Poverty in Sri Lanka is 24.8% of the population as of July 1, 2024 [1] Sri Lanka's life expectancy and literacy rate are nearly on par with those of developed countries, and even top[vague] the rankings for the South Asia region.[2][incomplete short citation] While all these indicate that Sri Lanka should be experiencing a high standard of living, until recently it has only ranked in the medium category of the Human Development Index (HDI).[2] This is despite the fact that Sri Lanka has been experiencing moderate growth in its GDP averaging 5.5 per annum between 2006 and 2009.[3] One of the reasons is due to its relatively low GDP per capital;.[3] The Sri Lankan government has been successful in reducing poverty from 15.2% on 2006 to 8.9% in 2010, urban poverty was reduced from 6.7 to 5.3% while rural poverty was reduced from 15.7 to 9.5%, and the nation has made significant progress towards achieving Millennium Development Goals on eradicating extreme poverty and hunger.