Sri Lankan shares ended higher for the fifth straight session on Thursday, hours after Ranil Wickremesinghe was sworn in as the island nation’s new president.

At the close of trade, the CSE All-Share index was 0.3% higher at 7,736.37.

Veteran politician Wickremesinghe was sworn in as president a day after winning a vote in parliament and urging the nation to come together to find a way out of its worst economic crisis in decades.

Wickremesinghe, a six-time prime minister, succeeded Gotabaya Rajapaksa who fled Sri Lanka and resigned from his post last week after mass protests over his handling of the economy.

The island-nation of 22 million is facing its worst economic crisis in seven decades, unable to pay for essential imports such as fuel and medicine due to a severe shortage of foreign exchange.

Sri Lankan shares end up, Wickremesinghe voted president

On the CSE All-Share index, trading volume fell to 71.1 million shares from 82.7 million shares in the previous session.

The equity market turnover was 1.29 billion rupees ($3.60 million), down from 1.34 billion rupees in the earlier session, according to exchange data.

Foreign investors were net buyers in the equity market, purchasing 21.5 million rupees worth of shares, while domestic investors were net sellers, offloading 1.27 billion rupees worth of shares, the data showed.