CBSL adopting ‘as and when needed’ stance on foreign reserves

by Sanath Nanayakkare

The country’s foreign reserves will be added to, and utilised as and when needed, Dhammika Nanayakkara, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) said at a virtual forum hosted by the Central Bank on Monday.

“The Central Bank has taken many steps to have some standby arrangements with some friendly countries and also some other avenues ‘as and when’ we need reserves in foreign currency, and to utilise them ‘as and when’ the need arises,” Central Bank DG said.

“Referring to the recent bilateral currency swap agreement with the People’s Bank of China (PboC) amounting to CNY 10 billion (approximately US$ 1.5 billion), he said,”This agreement was entered into with a view to promoting bilateral trade and direct investment for economic development of the two countries, and to be used for other purposes agreed upon by both parties. I think we first entered into this kind of an agreement with the PboC in 2014. And it served as a standby arrangement. We hadn’t used a cent of that facility. Similarly this swap also could serve as a standby arrangement. We will try to make use of this facility but only if the need arises. Otherwise it could serve as a standby arrangement without any money being utilised during the period the contract is valid for.”

Explaining further he said: “As for the terms of the swap with the PboC, it can’t be swapped into USD.. But it is not completely stopped though, because there are three purposes the money can be used for. 1. Enhancing bilateral investment between the two countries 2. financing the trade flows 3. Any other purpose agreed to by both the providing part and the requesting party.”

“That covers a broader range of utilisation provided that both parties agree to it. That’s where we are in terms of utilising the swap facility.”

“It’s publicly known that we have some standby arrangements with PboC and also we are discussing with friendly countries such as India, Bangladesh, Qatar, Oman; a number of countries in different ways as to how we can ensure some standby arrangements,”

“If you look at the government’s policies, especially export-oriented domestic economy, increasing FDIs through non-debt creating inflows. I think all these things will definitely provide the much needed cashflow to service the debt obligations. The government has clearly mentioned that it has no intention of increasing foreign currency debt obligations going forward. Gradually the government wants to bring it down so that it can rely more on domestic borrowings,” the Deputy Governor said.

Meanwhile, the government of Republic of Korea and the government of Sri Lanka signed a new framework arrangement recently for the period of 2020-2022 to obtain loans up to an aggregate commitment amount of USD 500 million to finance projects mutually agreed.