COLOMBO: Sri Lanka's central bank on Thursday made a desperate call to its citizens living abroad to deposit their savings in the country's banking system to tide over the current financial hardships due to the coronavirus pandemic.
In view of the emergency call, Sri Lanka also said that all such remittances will be exempted from the exchange control regulations and taxes for a period of three months and would be protected under the banking secrecy provisions.
Your foreign currency deposits in the Sri Lankan banking system at this difficult stage will be of immense help to authorities to tide over the present crisis, an official statement said on Thursday.
To overcome the financial stress, the Sri Lankan government has also decided to restrict all imports of medicine and fuel.
Sri Lanka's economic growth in 2019 stood at under 3 per cent while the Sri Lankan rupee has already depreciated to a record low of over 190 to the US dollar, the Central Bank figures show.
Globally, more than 930,000 people have been infected and 46,800 people have died due to coronavirus that originated from China in November-December.
Till Thursday, Sri Lanka reported 148 confirmed COVID-19 cases with 3 deaths.
Several areas in the country are under total lockdown with the whole country being placed under a curfew which will be partly lifted on April 6.
The coronavirus outbreak has highly impacted tourism of Sri Lanka, a major source of revenue for the country.
This blow to the island nation's tourism comes after the Easter Sunday attacks last year that killed 258 people, including Indians.
In 2018 the island country attracted a record 2.2 million visitors, earning Sri Lanka about USD 4.4 bn.
It was named as the world's top tourist destination in 2019 by the travel guide, Lonely Planet.