Sri Lanka’s external sector demonstrated an improvement in January 2018 with higher inflows to the financial account in spite of the widening of the trade deficit. While earnings from merchandise exports increased, expenditure on imports also increased significantly outweighing the performance in export earnings during the month. Nevertheless, reversing the moderating trend observed during the last year, tourist earnings recorded a notable growth during January 2018. Workers’ remittances, which marked a set-back in 2017, also recorded a considerable growth on a year-on-year basis in January 2018. Meanwhile, the financial account of the Balance of Payments (BOP) continued to experience higher inflows in January 2018, with foreign investments in the government securities market and the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE). At the end of January 2018, gross official reserves of the country amounted to US dollars 7.7 billion, equivalent to 4.3 months of imports.

Considering the immense requests made and the difficulties faced by the general public in exchanging willfully defaced currency notes after 31.03.2018, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) has decided to continue the service of exchange of willfully mutilated, altered and defaced currency notes from CBSL until further notice.

Accordingly, the general public is hereby informed to submit such currency notes to the CBSL Head Office or Regional Offices located at Anuradhapura, Matale, Matara, Trincomalee, Nuwara Eliya, Kilinochchi or send the same by registered post to the following address together with the duly completed application form. The relevant application form can be obtained from the CBSL website (www.cbsl.gov.lk), Regional Offices and any branch of Licensed Commercial Banks (LCBs).