Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake told Parliament that the government expects 671 million US dollar worth surplus in the overall balance of payment account for 2016. Karunanayake said the government forecasts around 11,374 million US dollars of foreign exchange earnings and 10,703 million US dollars foreign exchange payments for this year.

“Sri Lanka’s official reserves were 6.9 billion US dollars by today. Every month our reserves are now going up by about 150 million US dollars,” Karunanayake said on Thursday.

“We are expecting around 1,500 million US dollars from the newly introduced Special Deposits facility for foreign individuals who remit 300,000 US dollars to Sri Lanka.”

Sri Lanka’s official reserves were 6.5 billion US dollars at the end of July, up from 5.27 billion US dollars end of June, official Central Bank data showed.

In June, the government received 169 million US dollars as the first tranche of IMF’s extended fund facility and in July, it received 300 million US dollars as part of the 500 million US dollars syndicated loan program.

Last month, the government issued one billion US dollar worth sovereign bond with a tenor of 10 years and 500 million US dollar worth bond with a tenor of 5.5 years.