COLOMBO – Sri Lanka has cut a requirement for commercial banks to surrender 25% of export proceeds and remittances to 15% effective February 27.
The move will help ‘market driven forex activities’, the central bank said in a letter to chief executive officers of banks.
Commercial banks are expected to re-sell to the central bank dollars they buy from exporters, expat workers at an average rate.
Sri Lanka’s surrender requirement has been blamed by analysts for the failure of a float (an attempt at suspension of convertibility).
A requirement to sell dollars to the central bank is a strong side convertibility undertaking which pushes a currency peg down.
Sri Lanka’s central bank is at the moment successfully pegging the exchange rate at 360/370 to the US dollar by halting money printing allowing market rates to go up and inflation to fall rapidly.
Central bank’s purchases of US dollars has exceeded sales in recent months after rates were hiked and private credit fell.
-economynext.com
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