Foreign Reserves rise to 6.1 Billion U.S.Dollars

The Central Bank informed that the country’s reserves at present amounts to 6.1 billion U.S.Dollars with the infusion of 427 million U.S.Dollars from the International Monetary Fund.

The Bank said that these disbursements as well as other inflows on account of workers’ remittances, inflows to the Government to finance various infrastructure development projects and inflows to the private sector have helped raise the country’s foreign reserves to a comfortable level.

It said that accordingly, the gross official reserves now stand at 6.1 billion U.S.Dollars, which is equivalent to 3.6 months of imports.

The Bank also said that following the seventh review of Sri Lanka’s Stand-by Arrangement facility, fresh funds were released, bringing the total to 2.13 billion U.S.Dollars since July 2009. It said that with the receipt of the eighth tranche, the total outstanding value will exceed 300% of Sri Lanka’s current quota, thus requiring the payment of an interest surcharge of 2% on top of the current interest rate for the portion exceeding the 300% of the quota, which is equivalent to 130 million U.S.Dollars. (niz).