COLOMBO – Sri Lanka’s 12-month inflation in Colombo fell to 61% in November 2022 from 66% in October as price stabilized after interest rates were allowed to go up and the exchange rate was pegged around 360 to the US dollar.
The widely watched Colombo Consumer Price Index fell absolutely 0.5% to 242.6 points in November after falling .04% in the October.
Food prices fell 1.5% after falling 2.0% a month earlier. The sub-index containing gas fell 0.5% and transport fell 3.6%.
But some services continued to go up, as relative prices adjusted to the steep fall in the currency after two years of money printing to suppress rates.
Health costs went up 5.7%. Furnishing and routine maintenance rose 0.4%.
Sri Lanka’s central bank hiked policy rates to 15.5% in April and pulled back on longer term money printing, allowing market rates to go to around 30 percent.
The exchange rate is pegged around 363 rupees with a surrender rule where banks are forced to sell dollars to the central bank for new liquidity.
The ongoing currency and inflation crisis is the worst in the history of the central bank.
Sri Lanka’s Latin America style central bank was set up in 1950 giving powers to the country’s macro-economists the power to mis-target rates, create currency crisis and high inflation.
-economynext.com
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