Stock exchange hurt by losses in industrial stocks

COLOMBO: Sri Lankan shares closed lower on Thursday, hurt by losses in industrial stocks, while the country’s central bank kept interest rates unchanged, Reuters reported.

The CSE All-Share index settled 1.47% lower at 9,182.23.

Sri Lanka’s central bank held interest rates steady on Thursday, saying monetary conditions remain “sufficiently tight” after a massive rate-hike campaign earlier in the year to tame stubbornly high inflation.

Inflation remains uncomfortably high, hitting a record of 68.9% in September year-on-year with food inflation up 93.7%, exacerbated by the rupee currency’s dive and a global surge in commodity prices.

The World Bank on Thursday revised Sri Lanka’s 2022 economic contraction forecast to 9.2% from an earlier expectation of a 7.8% contraction.

Meanwhile, a government official in Tokyo said Japan has not yet reached an agreement to co-chair a debt summit with Sri Lanka’s creditors.

Conglomerate Expolanka Holdings Plc and the local unit of Indian Oil Corp, Lanka IOC, were the top drags on the CSE All-Share index, falling 6.8% and 7.1%, respectively.