Sri Lanka top five SOEs lose Rs931bn amid monetary instability

Sri Lanka’s top five state enterprises have lost 931 billion rupees in the first four months of 2022, official data shows, with a collapse of a soft-peg due to aggressive open market operations of the central bank contributing to most losses.

The Ceylon Petroleum Corporation lost 628 billion rupees, with 541 billion rupees of the gap coming from a foreign exchange loss as a soft-peg operated by the central bank collapsed steeply after two years of money printing.

The forex loans were also taken to buy oil when the central bank created forex shortages through aggressive open market operations during the current and past currency crises.

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