The Sri Lankan Stock Market halted trading due to a sharp decline in indicators, a short while after reopening the market following a two-week closure.
The index of shares of major companies decreased by 12.6 percent, exceeding the 10 percent after which trading must be stopped.
Colombo’s main Index fell 6.7 percent as investors worry about the nation’s worst economic crisis.
While trading in Sri Lanka was halted for the previous two weeks, the central bank hiked policy rates by a record and the government halted payments on foreign debt, while rating companies slashed the nation’s credit rating.
Prior to Monday’s fall, Colombo’s All Share Index had lost nearly a third of its value since the beginning of 2022, after jumping 80 percent in 2021.
Sri Lanka is grappling with its worst economic downturn since independence from Britain in 1948, with months of regular blackouts and acute shortages of food and fuel.
After the COVID-19 pandemic that hit tourism for two years, the Russian war in Ukraine accelerated the deterioration of the economy, and Sri Lanka was no longer able to import basic materials, such as fuel and foodstuffs.
Sri Lanka had announced the suspension of the payment of its foreign debt, amounting to $51bn, and said that it was planning to restructure its obligations, while facing a dwindling of its foreign exchange reserves.
Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa declared on April 2 a state of emergency in the country, after huge protests over the worst economic crisis that the country has seen in decades.
Rajapaksa has also announced that he will request a rescue plan for his country from the International Monetary Fund, to help solve the economic crisis that has caused the foreign exchange reserves to drop by 70 percent in the past two years to about $2.31 bn.
