Crisis in Sri Lanka: financial markets will not reopen this week
Sri Lankans receive a traditional treat as they mark the dawn of the Sinhalese and Tamil New Year during an anti-government protest near the president's office in Colombo, April 14, 2022. AP - Eranga Jayawardena
Text by: RFI Follow
1 min
This is a further symptom of the serious financial crisis that Sri Lanka is going through: the financial markets will remain closed for five more days next week.
Since April 8, the Colombo Stock Exchange has been on hold due to the serious crisis that led the country to declare default on April 12.
Short of foreign currency, Sri Lanka will start crucial talks with the IMF next week.
Advertisement
Read more
The Colombo Stock Exchange should have reopened on Monday, but it will remain closed for five more days.
According to the stock market authorities, this measure is “
in the interest of market participants if it offers them an opportunity to have more clarity and understanding of the economic situation
”.
However, this is precisely where the shoe pinches, financial and economic operators no longer have any visibility since the country is in default.
Reopening the stock market in the middle of a storm would have been to take the risk of seeing the value of Sri Lankan companies collapse, not to mention the rupee, which has already lost a third of its value over the past thirty days.
Short of foreign currency, the country can no longer import enough petroleum products or foodstuffs, and the shortages threaten to lead to famine, according to the speaker of Parliament.
The light may come from the IMF.
Discussions are scheduled for Monday in Washington between Sri Lankan leaders and those of the Fund.
The island's two big creditors, China and India, have so far refused any restructuring of the huge public debt, preferring to increase their lines of credit.
►Read also: In Sri Lanka, the inhabitants of the island increasingly exhausted by the crisis
Newsletter
Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
Sri Lanka
Economic crisis
IMF