The Sri Lankan rupee ended steady on Wednesday as importer dollar demand was offset by greenback sales, a day after central bank governor Indrajith Coomaraswamy said the currency was not under upward pressure as capital inflows had not been of sufficient magnitude to exert such pressure. The spot rupee ended steady at 145.55/60 per dollar, while one-week rupee forwards also ended largely unchanged at 145.75/80.
The central bank has largely not intervened to defend the rupee ever since a dual-tenure sovereign bond issue raised $1.5 billion in July. Net foreign inflows into government securities jumped 31.4 percent to 302.4 billion rupees ($2.08 billion) through August 24, according to the latest central bank data, since the International Monetary Fund approved a three-year, $1.5 billion loan on June 4.