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The Foreign Ministry says the Sri Lankan High Commission will be closed to consuls in Nigeria and Germany and Cyprus from January.
Sri Lanka has announced the closure of three foreign diplomatic missions with the aim of rescuing them foreign currency reserves, as the country’s central bank tightens controls on the dollars needed to finance essential imports.
The Sri Lankan High Commission in Nigeria and the German and Cypriot consulates will be closed in January for restructuring, the Foreign Ministry said on Monday.
“The restructuring is aimed at conserving the country’s foreign reserves and reducing the cost of maintaining its missions abroad in Sri Lanka,” the ministry said in a statement.
The island’s tourism-dependent economy has been hit by a pandemic of coronavirus.
In March last year, the government imposed a wide-ranging import ban to protect forex reserves, leading to a shortage of essential goods such as fuel and sugar.
The closure of the three missions came on the same day as the Central Bank of Sri Lanka tightened restrictions on foreign currency remittances received by locals.
He promised all commercial banks to hand over a quarter of the dollar profit to the government, more than 10 percent.
This means that banks will have less dollars to give to private traders who import essential goods.
Sri Lanka had $ 1.58 billion in foreign reserves at the end of November, when President Gotabaya Rajapaksa took office in 2019 for less than $ 7.5 billion.
The Central Bank has demanded foreign currency, as well as loose changes in the number of people returning from foreign travel.
Earlier this month, the rating agency Fitch downgraded Sri Lanka as it raised fears of a $ 26 billion increase in its sovereign foreign debt.
He stressed that the government can fulfill its obligations.
Food shortages The government has stepped up its ban on imports of agricultural chemicals, which was suspended last month after crop failures and heavy protests by farmers.
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