Sri Lanka tightens trade rules to boost currency reserves By Reuters

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: People walk past the main entrance of the Sri Lanka’s Central Bank in Colombo, Sri Lanka March 24, 2017. REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte/File Photo

By Uditha Jayasinghe

COLOMBO (Reuters) – Sri Lanka’s Central Bank tightened trade restrictions on Saturday, ordering exporters to repatriate foreign exchange earnings within 180 days of transactions in a bid to improve country’s depleting foreign exchange reserves.

Sri Lanka is tackling its worst financial crisis in over a decade, struggling to pay for critical imports including fuel, food and medicines and with just $2.31 billion of reserves.

The bank’s moves include mandatory currency conversion for exporters of goods and services to change their foreign exchange earnings into Sri Lankan rupees.

“All licensed banks are required to strictly monitor receipts of goods to Sri Lanka,” the central bank stated in a notification, adding that it “has the right to initiate action against non-compliance by any exporter or licensed banks”.

The state-run oil company on Friday increased prices by 55 to 95 rupees (22-24 cents) per litre for most fuels to offset losses after Sri Lanka introduced a flexible exchange rate that saw the rupee plunge 30% to 260 rupees to the dollar.

($1 = 250.0000 Sri Lankan rupees)

Disclaimer: Fusion Media would like to remind you that the data contained in this website is not necessarily real-time nor accurate. All CFDs (stocks, indexes, futures) and Forex prices are not provided by exchanges but rather by market makers, and so prices may not be accurate and may differ from the actual market price, meaning prices are indicative and not appropriate for trading purposes. Therefore Fusion Media doesn`t bear any responsibility for any trading losses you might incur as a result of using this data.

Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.

by : Reuters

Source link

Capital Media

Read Previous

France, UK, Germany say Iran deal could collapse on Russian demands By Reuters

Read Next

Safaricom signe un accord pluriannuel avec Intelsat pour étendre la couverture de son réseau LTE