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Sri Lanka Purchasing Managers’ Index - October 2018

All the sub-indices of PMI Manufacturing recorded values above the neutral 50.0 threshold signalling an overall expansion in October compared to September. The improvement observed in manufacturing activities in October was mainly driven by the improvement in new orders and production, especially in manufacturing of food and beverages activities, led by the positive outlook with the seasonal demand. Even though the employment in the manufacturing of food and beverages activities has improved with seasonal trend, overall employment slowed down. This was mainly evident in manufacturing of textiles, wearing apparels, leather and related activities due to difficulties to find employees in the market.

The Central Bank of Sri Lanka Requests the General Public to be Attentive to Financial Scams/Phishing Emails

The attention of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) has been drawn to recent grievances received from the general public regarding financial scams spreading through phishing emails/ social media messages.  CBSL has noticed that the image of the Head Office building, the Logo of CBSL, names of senior officials of CBSL, are being used by scammers and fraudsters to solicit money from the public by disguising such scams as being sent from a trustworthy entity. 

Monetary Policy Review - No. 7 of 2018

The Monetary Board of the Central Bank, at its meeting held on 13 November 2018, decided to reduce the Statutory Reserve Ratio (SRR) applicable on all rupee deposit liabilities of commercial banks by 1.50 percentage points to 6.00 per cent. In order to neutralise the impact of this reduction and maintain its neutral monetary policy stance, the Monetary Board decided to increase the Standing Deposit Facility Rate (SDFR) of the Central Bank by 75 basis points to 8.00 per cent and the Standing Lending Facility Rate (SLFR) of the Central Bank by 50 basis points to 9.00 per cent. 

The Board arrived at this decision following a careful analysis of current and expected developments in the domestic and global economy and the domestic financial market, with the broad aim of stabilising inflation at mid single digit levels in the medium term to enable the economy to reach its potential. 

Financial Intelligence Unit of Sri Lanka entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Department of Motor Traffic

In terms of the provisions of the Financial Transactions Reporting Act, No. 6 of 2006 (FTRA), the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of Sri Lanka entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Department of Motor Traffic (DMT) on November 01, 2018 at the Central Bank of Sri Lanka to receive intelligence information related to investigations and prosecutions of money laundering, terrorist financing and other related crimes.

Mr. A H K Jagath Chandrasiri, Commissioner General of the DMT and Mr. D M Rupasinghe, Director, FIU signed the MOU on behalf of the respective institutions in the presence of Dr. Indrajit Coomaraswamy, the Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, who is also the Chairman of the Anti-Money Laundering/Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) National Coordinating Committee.

Appointment of New Deputy Governors

The Monetary Board, with the concurrence of the Hon. Minister of Finance, has promoted Assistant Governors, Mr. S R Attygalle and Mr. H A Karunaratne to the post of Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) with effect from 31st October 2018.

Erroneous News Articles on Money Printing

The attention of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) has been drawn to recent newspaper articles on increased money printing by the CBSL in the past few days. The CBSL wishes to provide the following clarification as the concepts and facts in such articles remain grossly inaccurate and misleading:

These articles suggest that the CBSL has printed a large amount of money recently to help finance the government’s fiscal commitments. Usually, money printing refers to the expansion of Reserve Money (Monetary Base). Reserve Money, which was at Rs. 939.8 billion at end 2017 and at Rs. 1,010.5 billion at end September 2018, was recorded at Rs. 1,020.8 billion on 2 November 2018. This is a year-on-year growth in Reserve Money of 11.6 per cent, which is well within the CBSL projections for the year.

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