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State Bank of India completes first commercial trade in Sri Lankan rupees

The move comes as Sri Lanka grapples with its worst economic crisis since its independence, triggered by a shortage of dollars

SBI, state bank of India

Photo: Bloomberg

Reuters COLOMBO

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Indian lender State Bank of India on Thursday said it completed its first non-dollar transaction with Sri Lanka, by paying for exports in Sri Lankan rupees as India looks to bring countries that are short of U.S. dollars into the trade mechanism.

The move comes as Sri Lanka grapples with its worst economic crisis since its independence, triggered by a shortage of dollars. The island nation's forex reserves stood at $2.1 billion as of end-January.

 

(Reporting by Nallur Sethuraman in Bengaluru and Uditha Jayasinghe in Colombo; editing by Jason Neely)

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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First Published: Mar 02 2023 | 6:01 PM IST

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