The Sri Lankan rupee has depreciated 6.6 per cent against the US dollar since the start of 2026, the Central Bank said in its latest weekly economic indicators, with the figure dated to 23 October.
The reading was reported by Hiru News on Saturday evening, drawing on the Central Bank’s weekly release for the week ending 23 October.
It marks a step up from the 6.3 per cent the same series recorded as of 9 October — roughly 0.3 percentage points of further depreciation over a fortnight.
Government securities: yields steady, foreign holdings lower
The Central Bank said Treasury bill yields were broadly stable across both the primary and secondary markets over the reporting week.
The more notable movement was in foreign participation. The rupee value of Treasury bills and bonds held by foreign investors fell by about 1.4 per cent week-on-week.
That is a reversal. The same indicator rose about 1.6 per cent in the week to 9 October, and foreign investors then bought rupee bonds for a third straight week to 16 October, taking net three-week inflows to Rs. 5.5 billion and holdings to Rs. 202.4 billion. A 1.4 per cent decline from that level is on the order of Rs. 2.8 billion.
One caution on reading it: the indicator measures the rupee value of holdings, not net flows. Value can fall because investors sold, because bond prices moved, or both. The weekly release as reported does not separate the three, so this is not by itself evidence that the buying streak has turned into net selling.
Where the rupee closed
EconomyNext’s Friday market filing, headlined “Sri Lanka rupee closes at 332.10/20 to US dollar spot, bond yields lower”, was published at 5.04 p.m. on 23 October.
Its spot close of 332.10/20 sits slightly stronger than the 332.20/35 recorded at Thursday’s close. Note that EconomyNext’s “bond yields lower” refers to the daily secondary-market close in bonds, while the Central Bank’s “broadly stable” describes Treasury bill yields across the full reporting week — different instruments over different periods, not a conflict.
Not reported: the weekly release as reported does not give the rupee’s spot rate, state the scale of any Central Bank intervention during the week, or break the fall in foreign holdings into sales versus valuation effects. The full text of EconomyNext’s market report could not be retrieved from this desk — only its headline and timestamp were verified — so its figures beyond the spot close are not relied on here.
