Sri Lanka in talks with India for US$1bn swap, expects US$1.5n from ACU

ECONOMYNEXT- Sri Lanka is in talks with India for a billion US dollar swap, and another 1.5 billion US dollars are expected from deferred payments under the Asian Clearing Union, Central Bank Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe has said.

Indian has a already deferred about 1.5 billion US dollars from payments due under the Asian Clearing Union to India on imports.

Sri Lanka importers pay about 500 million US dollars every two months to the central bank to be remitted to India.

“They have agreed to defer that,” Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe told parliament’s committee on public enterprises.

“We have used about 1.5 billion so far. There is another 1.5 billion that will collect at the Central Bank for the next six months.”

“In addition we are discussing with India to get from RBI a swap facility of about one billion US dollars. That is at discussion level.”

Sri Lanka has received 500 million US dollar oil credit for petroleum and are have agreed to give another 500 million dollars, Governor Weerasinghe said.