BusinessIn today's News Foreign loans inflow improve Lankan foreign reserves but worker remittances continue fallForeign inflows from loans, declining foreign remittances from workers and continued rise in tea prices were among the features of Sri Lanka’s economic performance in the six months ending June 2017, the Central Bank (CB) said last week. Also encouraging was that foreign direct investment inflow saw an improvement by 13.2 per cent at $146.5 million. The CB said the country’s overall balance of payments position is estimated to have recorded a surplus of $1,563.4 million during the first half of 2017 compared a deficit of $1,186.1 million in the same 2016 period. Gross official reserves rose to $7 billion by end June 2017 with the proceeds from the International Sovereign Bonds (ISB) issuance and the syndicated loan facility. The reserves were equivalent to 4.1 months of imports while total foreign assets at $9.1 billion were equivalent to 5.3 months of imports.

Source: Sunday Times August 28, 2017 05:03 UTC