Apr 09, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s foreign reserve rose slightly to 5,135 million US dollars in January 2010 from 5,096 million US dollars in December, which was equal to about 5.8 months of imports, the central bank said. In January 289.8 million US dollars of remittances were received from migrant workers, up 12.3 percent from a year earlier.
With the balances at the Asian Clearing Union, a regional arrangement with non-convertible currency countries, foreign reserves were 5,328 million US dollars.
The central bank said Sri Lanka’s current account (goods and services) recorded a deficit of 214 million US dollars in 2009, revising a previously estimated surplus for the year, which is said would be the first since 1977.
Sri Lanka had a current account deficit of 0.5 percent of gross domestic product in 2009 compared to 9.5 percent of GDP deficit (3,886 million US dollars) in 2008.