Sri Lanka’s economic indicators remain strong despite the depreciation of the rupee, says Minister of Finance and Mass Media Mangala Samaraweera. According to the minister, although a decline in the rupee is assumed to lead to an economic downturn, the island nation’s base indicators remain positive – i.e. imports, exports and net capital flows are moving in the right direction, and the economy is not collapsing.

The currencies of India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Russia, Brazil, Turkey and Argentina have also depreciated against a strengthening dollar, and further depreciation can be expected in the future. This kind of volatility is deemed unavoidable in an integrated global economy and therefore, it is imperative to build safeguards and resilience to deal with such situations.

In this regard, the government is said to have taken measures to control Sri Lanka’s imports especially of vehicles, which constitute a major outflow of the country’s foreign exchange.