Sri Lanka rupee continues to plumb depths, PM Ranil blames global crisis
Posted on October 3rd, 2018
Courtesy The Standard (HK)
The heavily indebted government of President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesighe has been lurching from one crisis to another, and the country has to settle debts of US$4 billion next year. Growth under the regime, riddled with corruption, has slowed to a crawl.
The rupee ended at 169.20/45 per US dollar, compared with the previous close of 168.90/169.00, Reuters data show.
Premier Wickremesinghe has blamed a non-existent global economic crisis and a global financial crisis for the rupee’s woes in political speeches targeting a domestic audience, while Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera has asked the public to shun foreign products.
The Central Bank had spent US$1.2 billion to defend the free-falling rupee.
Reuters reports that the Colombo stock index fell 0.17 percent to 5,807.74, its lowest close since December 13, 2013.
October 3rd, 2018 at 7:00 pm
Not so. USA is our largest export destination! Stop telling lies and face the problem.
We are in this crisis since 2012 due to the debt crisis. Grace period on loans have come to an end and we must find $4 billion to repay loans this year and $4.5 billion next year. Resettlement of 300,000 Tamil IDPs in record time does not create such a large income stream for the government. Very large and fast infrastructure development in the North does not bring in the returns to the government to repay those loans. To make matters worse, northern people are worst offenders in tax evasion.
At that time we boasted even USA failed to resettle most Cyclone Katrina IDPs after 10 years (and rebuild those towns) but Sri Lanka resettled all Tamil IDPs in 3 years with better housing than they had! Fools dare where angels dire to tread.
I predicted this in these columns in early 2013 when Basil said 85% of all foreign borrowings after the war went to the north.