The Monetary Board of the Central Bank, at its meeting held today, 08 April 2019, decided to maintain policy interest rates at their current levels. Accordingly, the Standing Deposit Facility Rate (SDFR) and the Standing Lending Facility Rate (SLFR) of the Central Bank will remain at 8.00 per cent and 9.00 per cent, respectively. The Board arrived at this decision following a careful analysis of current and expected developments in the domestic economy, the financial market as well as the developments in the global economy, with the broad aim of stabilising inflation at mid single digit levels in the medium term to enable the economy to reach its potential.

Headline inflation as measured by the year-on- year change in the National Consumer Price Index (NCPI, 2013=100)1 increased to 2.4 per cent in February 2019 from 1.2 per cent in January 2019 mainly due to the base effect. Meanwhile, year-on-year Non-food inflation increased to 6.7 per cent in February 2019 from 6.5 per cent in January 2019 while Food inflation also increased to -2.9 per cent in February 2019 from -4.8 per cent in January 2019.