CB Governor awaits COPE outcome; bond market transparency to improve

July 05, 2016 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Central Bank Governor Indrajit Coomaraswamy told reporters Tuesday that he will look at the outcome of the COPE investigation before taking any action with regard to the alleged bond scam.

Meeting reporters in Colombo for the first time after the new appointment, Coomaraswamy said the Central Bank will cooperate with the COPE investigation. “COPE is a parliamentary committee and they are conducting an inquiry. So the Central Bank will cooperate with the investigation,” he said. “Let’s see what the COPE findings are as we don’t know more about what happened. It happened before my time and I would like to see how the COPE inquiry comes out.” The Central Bank Governor further stated that they want to raise the bar for bond market transparency. “We are trying to improve the bond issuance system as much as possible and also looking at all kinds of actions needed for a transparent bond market.” Commenting on the economy, Governor Coomaraswamy said he thinks that the economy is currently on the right track with a medium term stabilization package with the IMF. There was no urgent need to adjust interest rates, as the transmission mechanism takes time, he said.

The rupee-dollar pair was being managed flexibly so that there isn't too much volatility, and current inflows and outflows suggest the rupee was at an equilibrium level, Central Bank officials said.