With the aim of stabilizing Sri Lanka’s inflation at mid single digit level, the Central Bank has raised its policy rate on Wednesday (14), after one and half years.
In order to neutralise the impact of this reduction and maintain its neutral monetary policy stance, the Monetary Board of the Central Bank has decided to increase the Standing Deposit Facility Rate (SDFR) of the Central Bank by 75 basis points to 8.00 per cent and the Standing Lending Facility Rate (SLFR) of the Central Bank by 50 basis points to 9.00 per cent, Central Bank announced.
The Monetary Board, at its meeting held today, decided to reduce the Statutory Reserve Ratio (SRR) applicable on all rupee deposit liabilities of commercial banks by 1.50 percentage points to 6.00 per cent.The Board arrived at this decision following a careful analysis of current and expected developments in the domestic and global economy and the domestic financial market, with the broad aim of stabilising inflation at mid single digit levels in the medium term to enable the economy to reach its potential.
Tight monetary conditions persisted in the domestic market and the large and persistent shortage in rupee liquidity required the Central Bank to conduct open market operations (OMOs) on a short- and long-term basis in addition to overnight operations.The significant growth in imports as well as recent capital outflows amidst the broad based strengthening of the US dollar exerted pressure on the exchange rate.
Although the pace of depreciation has moderated recently, the Sri Lankan rupee has depreciated by 12.9 per cent against the US dollar during 2018 up to 13 November.Meanwhile, supported by the receipt of the foreign currency term financing facility of US dollars 1 billion by the government, gross official reserves amounted to US dollars 7.9 billion as at end October 2018, providing an import cover of 4.2 months
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