The United National Party has warned that continued rupee depreciation will inflict long-term hardship on the public through higher living costs, claiming the exchange rate has moved from around Rs. 292 when former President Ranil Wickremesinghe left office to around Rs. 354 against the US dollar — a drop of about Rs. 62 in 20 months under the NPP government.
The UNP said the country was facing a “very serious issue” from what it described as the “uncontrolled depreciation” of the rupee, attributing the slide to the government’s failure to continue economic policies from the previous administration and to a lack of a clear economic plan and weak foreign reserves accumulation.
The party criticised recent attempts to frame the depreciation in a positive light, singling out comments by Deputy Finance Minister Anil Jayantha Fernando — who told Parliament the rupee fall was not a crisis and was partly competitive with regional peers — and the Joint Apparel Association Forum’s endorsement of CBSL’s regional comparison.
While acknowledging some export sectors may benefit from a weaker currency, the UNP said employees and the wider public would suffer through higher cost of living. It questioned expectations of stronger export growth amid uncertain European demand and rising international instability, and pointed to disruption on global shipping routes including the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea as risks that could push freight costs higher and erode export gains.
The party referenced the open-economy reforms of former President J.R. Jayewardene and the apparel-industry expansion under former President Ranasinghe Premadasa, and urged exporters not to shift the burden of economic hardship onto their employees.
The intervention adds a third political voice to the rupee debate this week alongside SJB economist Harsha de Silva’s “frozen forex market” warning and the National Chamber of Exporters’ longer-term-impact framing.
