Sri Lankan shares rose more than 2% on Friday and logged their best day in over a month, helped by gains in industrial and financial stocks.

The CSE All-Share index ended 2.07% higher at 12,459.80 points, its biggest intraday percentage gain since Jan 5. However, it clocked its third straight weekly fall with a loss of 2.37%.

Conglomerates LOLC Holdings and Expolanka Holdings were the top boosts to the index, adding 8.8% and 5.3%, respectively.

Foreign investors were net sellers in the equity market, offloading shares worth 87.2 million rupees ($431,683.17), while domestic investors were net buyers, picking up shares worth 2.94 billion rupees, exchange data showed.

Sri Lankan shares rise as industrial stocks boost

The equity market turnover was 2.99 billion rupees.

The trading volume fell to 95.2 million shares from 130.6 million shares in the previous session.

Sri Lanka's central bank on Friday said the country's trade deficit in December 2021 had widened to $1.09 billion from $562 million a year ago, while import and exports rose 46.8% and 19.9% year-over-year, respectively.

The island nation has reported 624,545 coronavirus cases and 15,723 deaths as of Thursday, data from the country's health bureau showed.

About 64.34% of Sri Lanka's population has been fully vaccinated, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

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