Sri Lankan shares on Thursday marked their worst day in three weeks, while data showed the economy contracted 11.8% in the third quarter as the country struggled to overcome its financial crisis.
The CSE All Share index ended 0.64% lower at 8,813.84, its worst performance since Nov. 24, weighed down by financial and consumer staples stocks.
The GDP data released after market hours on Thursday showed the island nation’s economy shrank in the July-September quarter from a year earlier, as the country struggled with deep political unrest sparked by the most severe financial crisis in more than seven decades.
Factors including high inflation, power cuts, rising interest rates, import shortages and fuel and fertiliser shortages hurt growth in the last quarter, the government said.
“Our projection was that it would be much worse, possibly a contraction of about 20%, but now the overall contraction for the year could be about 9%,” Dimantha Mathew, head of research at First Capital, said to Reuters.
Sri Lanka is expecting as much as $5 billion in loans next year from multilateral agencies, besides an IMF deal, its foreign minister told Reuters on Wednesday.
The government is also aiming to raise up to $3 billion through restructuring of state assets.
Sri Lankan shares end higher ahead of GDP data
The country is saddled with a public external debt of $40.6 billion, of which it owes 22% to Chinese creditors.
On the CSE All Share index, conglomerate LOLC Holdings and Browns Investments weighed the most, falling 2.3% and 3.7%, respectively.
The trading volume fell to 72.4 million shares from 88.8 million in the previous session.
The equity market’s turnover fell to 2.27 billion Sri Lankan rupees ($6.25 million)from 3.53 billion rupees in the previous session, according to exchange data.
Foreign investors were net buyers in the equity market, purchasing stocks worth 608.5 million rupees, while domestic investors were net sellers who offloaded 2.22 billion rupees worth of shares, the data showed.
Comments
Comments are closed.