Sri Lanka official reserves down by USD419mn in September

Oct 16, 2017 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s official reserve assets dropped by 418.

55 million US dollars to 7.29 billion dollars in September, official Central Bank data showed. Gross official reserves, however, has improved to around 7.3 billion US dollars in September which was equivalent to about 4.5 months of imports from 6.0 billion US dollars of reserves at end 2016. Foreign currency reserves were 6.29 billion dollars and reserves in gold were 0.

92 billion dollars by end September 2017. Central Bank’s Treasury bill holdings were down from 109.30 billion rupees in August to 57.11 billion rupees in September. Central Bank cumulative purchases of foreign exchange from the domestic market has exceeded 1.1 billion US dollars on a net basis.

During the year up to 13 October 2017, the Sri Lanka rupee has depreciated against the US dollar by 2.5 percent. Sri Lanka rupee has depreciated against the pound sterling by 9.8 percent, euro by 13.3 percent, Japanese yen by 6.2 percent and Indian rupee by 6.6 percent during this period.