COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s official reserves rose 165 million US dollars to 5.62 billion dollars in February, up from 5.45 billion dollars at the end of January, official Central Bank data showed. Foreign currency reserves were 4.66 billion US dollars and reserves in Gold were 0.89 billion US dollars. Central Bank has purchased 145.09 million dollars of foreign exchange from commercial banks at market rates in February while selling 297.25 million dollars in the month. During the year to date, Sri Lanka rupee has depreciated against the US dollar by 1.0 percent.
Sri Lanka rupee appreciated against the sterling pound by 0.02 percent while depreciated against euro by 1.5 percent. The rupee appreciated against Japanese yen by 2.0 percent and Indian rupee by 2.8 percent during this period. The Central Bank’s Treasury bill holdings were down from 250.65 billion rupees in January to 211.32 billion rupees in February. Meanwhile, the deficit in the trade balance has widened substantially by 47.2 percent to 922 million US dollars in November 2016 compared to 626 million dollars in November 2015, latest Central Bank data showed.
Earnings from exports at 810 million US dollars in November 2016 have declined by 3.4 percent from 838 million dollars in November 2015. Expenditure on imports has increased by 18.2 percent to 1,732 million dollars in November 2016. During the year up to end November 2016, the overall BOP is estimated to have recorded a deficit of 635.3 million US dollars, in comparison to a deficit of 1,274.2 million US dollars recorded during the corresponding period of 2015.
