Sri Lanka to continue relaxing exchange controls: CB governor

March 03, 2013 (LBO) - Sri Lanka will continue to liberalise foreign exchange controls to encourage the investments needed to maintain high economic growth, Central bank governor Nivard Cabraal said. "The thinking now is to try to have faster growth for which we need more savings and investment which, if not available in our own country, we must get from outside," he said.

"What we are setting out is exchange liberalisation in a gradual manner - gradually giving confidence to outside and local investors," he told a forum on liberalizing foreign exchange controls organized by the Shippers' Academy Colombo.

"In the next few years we will need to bring in new reforms.

We have not gone too fast, nor have we gone too slow. We have been not too hot or too cold, not too hard or too soft. We will apply those principles in foreign exchange regulations."

Cabraal said in 2008 there was a sudden exit of capital from Sri Lanka because of global conditions.

"People wanted to take money out and we allowed it.

We did not impose any constraints. As a result they were very confident and when things turned normal they came back. Today we have three billion US dollars in Treasury Bills a