The Central Bank reserves had dropped by around $ 500 million due to various reasons, the increase of local Treasury bond interests etc are cited as reasons for the increase in interest rates.

Last year an additional $900 million had been spent on fuel imports while gold import costs had gone up by $ 500 million, which has put pressure on foreign exchange.

The country’s overall import costs too had increased by around $ 2 billion in comparison to the previous year.

Therefore, due to this financial deficit, the bank interests are bound to increase by 1% in the near future, it is said.