by Sanath Nanayakkare The country’s foreign reserves will be added to, and utilised as and when needed, Dhammika Nanayakkara, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) said at a virtual forum hosted by the Central Bank on Monday. “The Central Bank has taken many steps to have some standby arrangements with some friendly countries and also some other avenues ‘as and when’ we need reserves in foreign currency, and to utilise them ‘as and when’ the need arises,” Central Bank DG said. “Referring to the recent bilateral currency swap agreement with the People’s Bank of China (PboC) amounting to CNY 10 billion (approximately US$ 1.5 billion), he said,”This agreement was entered into with a view to promoting bilateral trade and direct investment for economic development of the two countries, and to be used for other purposes agreed upon by both parties. I think we first entered into this kind of an agreement with the PboC in 2014. And it served as a standby arrangement. We hadn’t used a cent of that facility. Similarly this swap also could serve as a standby arrangement. We will try to make use of this facility but only if the need arises. Otherwise it could serve as a standby arrangement without any money being utilised during the period the contract is valid for.”