The regular poll conducted by feedback.lk revealed that 57% of the general public and 72% of the market participants expects benchmarked interest rates will remain unchanged. Meantime, general public expect further reduction of interest rates in line with the secondary market rate decline in T-Bills and AWPR.
CBSL increased the rate at the last monetary policy meeting as a response to the IMF request based on the inflation expectation. Inflation held up at end of March due to non-food inflation, but it is expected to fall in April due to base effect and price adjustment due to fuel price adjustment.