Overseas investments through OIA suspended for three months

• LKR depreciated further against USD with selling rate of dollar closing at Rs.199.40 

Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa issued an extraordinary gazette last evening suspending payments through Outward Investment Accounts (OIA) for overseas investments by Sri Lankans for a period of three months.   

 This gazette notification comes after the Sri Lankan Rupee depreciated further against the US dollar with the selling rate of dollar closing at Rs.199.40. Sri Lankan Rupee has been depreciating against the US dollar during the past two weeks. 

OIA is a special account designated for those resident in Sri  Lanka to channel funds abroad for eligible overseas investments such as investment in shares, units, debt securities, sovereign bonds and establishing of overseas company of a company incorporated in Sri  Lanka. Licensed commercial banks are permitted to open and maintain OIA in the name of resident investors in the domestic banking unit of a licensed commercial bank in any designated foreign currency subject to terms and conditions stipulated in Sri Lankan 
currency laws.   

• Sri Lankan Rupee has been depreciating against the US dollar during the past two weeks