COLOMBO —
The
Colombo Stock Exchange on Saturday announced a five-day trading halt after
crisis-hit Sri Lanka hiked interest rates and declared a default on its
external debt during the traditional New Year holiday.
اضافة اعلان
The market was due
to reopen on Monday after being shut all week for the occasion, but the CSE
said it will remain closed from Monday to Friday due to the “present situation
in the country”.
The move came
ahead of
Sri Lanka’s planned talks with the International Monetary Fund in
Washington on Monday to negotiate a bailout as the country has run out of
foreign exchange to finance even the most essential imports.
Brokers had been
expecting shares to be hammered on Monday, after the central bank almost
doubled its benchmark interest rate to 14.5 percent following the close on
April 8, the last trading day before the holiday.
Faced with an
unprecedented forex crisis, the government on Tuesday declared it was
suspending interest and capital payments on its huge foreign debt.
The CSE said that
regulators believed it was in the best interest of “market participants if they
are afforded an opportunity to have more clarity and understanding of the
economic conditions”.
The island nation
is grappling with its worst economic downturn since independence in 1948, with
regular blackouts and acute shortages of food and fuel in addition to record
inflation.
The CSE’s All
Share Index has shed over 38 percent in the past three months, while the Sri
Lankan rupee has fallen by more than 35 percent against the US dollar in the
past month.
The crisis has
caused widespread misery for Sri Lanka’s 22 million people and led to weeks of
anti-government protests.
Thousands of
people were camping outside
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s office for the
eighth straight day Saturday, chanting “Go home Gota”.
Sri Lanka had sought debt
relief from India and China, but both countries instead offered more credit
lines to buy commodities from them.
Read more Region and World
Jordan News
.jpg)
.jpg)
