This press statement aims to create public awareness about the operational and policy measures undertaken by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka thus far during 2020, to support the economy, the financial system and the general public in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Being the apex financial institution of the country, the Central Bank provided its full scope of essential services to the economy and the financial system during the lockdown. The Central Bank actively took steps to ease the burden on the general public during this unprecedented disruption of global scale, while preserving the focus on its legal mandate to maintain economic, price and financial system stability.  

Headline inflation as measured by the year-on-year (Y-o-Y) change in the National Consumer Price Index (NCPI, 2013=100) decreased further to 5.2 per cent in May 2020 from 5.9 per cent in April 2020. This was mainly driven by the statistical effect of the high base prevailed in May 2019. Meanwhile, Food inflation (Y-o-Y) declined to 11.1 per cent in May 2020 from 12.2 per cent in April 2020 and Non-food inflation (Y-o-Y) also declined to 0.8 per cent in May 2020 from 1.1 per cent in April 2020.