PHOTO
A man looks on as he waits outside his house during the power cut in Colombo, Sri Lanka March 30, 2022. REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte
Sri Lanka shares extended their decline on Thursday, with the Colombo Stock Exchange halting trade for a second straight day as the country's economic crisis deepens.
* The island-nation of 22 million people is struggling with rolling power cuts of up to 13 hours a day as the government is unable to make payments for fuel imports due to lack of foreign exchange.
* Power cuts also forced Sri Lanka's stock market to restrict trading to two hours from the usual four-and-a-half hours for the rest of the week.
* The country's foreign exchange reserves have fallen 70% in the past two years to about $2.31 billion, leaving it struggling to pay for essential imports, including food and fuel.
* The CSE All-Share index ended down 4.21% at 8,903.87 points, logging its worst quarterly performance since the quarter-ending December 2008, down 27.2%.
* Heavyweights Expolanka Holdings Plc and Lanka Orix Leasing Company Plc were the top drags on the index, shedding 9.4% and 12.9% respectively.
* Meanwhile, Sri Lanka's consumer prices rose 3% month-on-month in March, Statistics department data showed on Thursday.
* Foreign investors were net sellers in the equity market, offloading shares worth nearly 426.6 million rupees, while domestic investors were net buyers, purchasing 1.93 billion rupees worth of shares, exchange data showed.
* The equity market turnover was 2.32 billion rupees.
* Trading volume fell to 110.8 million shares from 164.8 million shares in the previous session.
(Reporting by Nallur Sethuraman in Bengaluru; Editing by Vinay Dwivedi)