Sri Lanka plunged into crisis last year as its foreign exchange reserves ran out, food and energy prices spiralled and protesting mobs forced the ouster of the country's then president.
"With no inflation risk the central bank will cut rates aggresssively to push demand and target growth."
The CBSL expects Sri Lanka's GDP to contract by 2% in 2023, slightly better than the 3% contraction predicted by the IMF.
Five analysts backed CBSL and IMF estimates, two said Sri Lanka would perform better and one projected a steeper contraction of 4.8%.
[]Sri Lanka will begin rolling back import restrictions on 300-400 items from next week, as per a statement from the finance ministry which gave no further details.
Persons:
CBSL, Dimantha Mathew, Kenji Okamura, Uditha Jayasinghe, Devayani, Swati Bhat, Toby Chopra
Organizations:
Sri, Citi Bank economists, International Monetary Fund, First, IMF, Thomson
Locations:
COLOMBO, Lanka's, Sri Lanka's, Sri Lanka, Colombo