Maintaining the country’s impeccable record of debt service payments, Sri Lanka successfully settled the matured 10-year International Sovereign Bond (ISB) of US dollars 1 billion in July 2021.
Gross official reserves stood at US dollars 2.8 billion at end July 2021 with the settlement of the matured ISB of US dollars 1 billion by the Central Bank on behalf of the Government.
This level was equivalent to 1.8 months of imports. Total foreign assets, which consist of gross official reserves and foreign assets of the banking sector, amounted to US dollars 5.9 billion at end July 2021, providing an import cover of 3.8 months. The level of reserves reported above does not include the 3-year bilateral currency swap facility amounting to CNY 10 billion (approximately US dollars 1.5 billion) between the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) and the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. Meanwhile, the country’s gross official reserves increased in August 2021, with the receipt of the proceeds of the IMF’s SDR allocation and the initial disbursements under the bilateral currency swap arrangement between the Central Bank of Sri Lanka and the Bangladesh Bank.
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