Foreign investors bail out from local stocks and bonds as debt servicing goes up

Originally appeared on News First

The COO of the Advocata Institute, Dhananath Fernando states that the foreign debt servicing schedule in Sri Lanka is mounting up for the next four years.

He explained that in 2019 Sri Lanka has to pay USD 4.2 billion, in 2020 USD 3.6 billion, in 2021 USD 3.3 billion and in 2022 USD  3.7 billion. So overall Sri Lanka will have to pay USD 15 billion over the next 4 years.

Even though the Sri Lankan rupee ended firmer yesterday (Dec 07) due to inward dollar remittances, foreign investors continued to bail out from local stocks and bonds.

Foreign investors sold a net Rs. 17 billion rupees worth of government securities in the week which ended on the 5th November, the highest weekly net outflows since the third week of February 2017. The stock market had net foreign outflows of Rs. 929.1 million this week.

While there are massive amounts to be paid as debt repayments, foreign investors continue to exit from stocks and bonds as well.