Sri Lanka rupee edges down on dollar demand by importers
The Sri Lankan rupee ended weaker in one-week forwards on Tuesday as late importer dollar demand surpassed greenback sales by a foreign bank, while the market waited for a policy statement from the new central bank governor, dealers said.
Speaking in his first meeting with the media, after market hours, new central bank governor Indrajith Coomaraswamy said the monetary authority will manage the exchange rate flexibly and not have too much volatility.
He said capping the spot rate is “something that has been kept constantly under review if and when there is a requirement to move on the exchange rate,” he told reporters.
The spot rupee is tightly managed by the central bank and market participants use the forward market levels for guidance on the currency.
Many dealers said the central bank did not intervene for the second straight session since the appointment of the new central bank governor.
The rupee in one-week forwards, which have been acting as a proxy for the spot rupee, ended at 147.20/30 per dollar, a tad weaker from Monday’s close of 147.10/20.
“The late importer demand was there. A foreign bank is selling dollars to buy bonds for foreign investors,” a currency dealer said, asking not to be named.
“There was neither moral suasion nor intervention by the central bank. Everybody is waiting for some direction by the new central bank governor.”
Nandalal Weerasinghe, the central bank deputy governor, said the level of central bank intervention has come down drastically and it has been absorbing dollars instead of selling.
Both spot rupee and spot-next were not quoted, dealers said.
(Reuters)
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This does not surprise me. This happens when 95% of the working population have no real jobs.
Yeah, that’s true Ranjith.
All those bludgers in Government Service; doing nothing and drawing huge salaries and car permits!
These bludgers include Ministry Secretaries, Heads of Departments, all doing nothing and driving around in Government Cars using Government petrol.
The only workers in the country are those who pick tea leaves for export, those who stitch garments (oversized underwear for middle aged white women) in the FTZ sweat-shops and those who tap rubber from the trees and those who pick coconuts for a living and those who plough paddy fields.
Also Ranjith, I have a soft heart for those who unload heavy gunniyas of consumer products in the harbour and load them into trucks.
The rest of them, Ranjith, do nothing and draw big salaries. What do the Engineers in the Irrigation Department and CEB do? Earning Kommis, day in day out.
Mr Thuleepan Somasundaram You are right. This fat idiots absolutely do nothing. These are spongers, living on the income gained by the estate workers and paddy field works etc. They have a big title like executive or a director. Rubbish! they are clerks. In develop countries girls age 18 do the same kind of jobs as these buggers. Well as long a s they get hand outs and loans from foreign countries , they don’t care what will happen to this country.
When a foreign countries give aid , they want give it because they love us. Asked the question how can UK and USA with lots of financial difficulties give this aid to us. UK goverment reduce lots of benefits to local irrespective to there protest , but never reduce the foreign aid. It is very difficult to explain here. But I.ll tell you they take much more than they give us.
The people who suffer are the poor hard working people. Foreign goverment know that this aid does not go to poor but to these work shy spongers because they can control them the the way they want.