SRI LANKA BANKNOTE PRINTING REPORT PUBLISHED

Money is printed to keep the economy running and it is a necessary step to revive it, if properly managed. Cabinet Spokesperson Minister Bandula Gunawardena, in denying media reports that the Central Bank (CB) has recently printed new money, challenged anyone to bring a banknote with the signatures of Mahinda Rajapaksa as the finance minister and the Governor of the Central Bank W. D. Lakshman.

This clearly shows his misunderstanding of the media statements that the CB has "printed new money"; which simply means that the CB has issued more money into circulation from the previously printed stockpile in its vaults.

Collectors keep a close eye for issues of banknotes with new dates and signatures. For unknown reasons, the CB makes no announcement when they do so. The CB Currency Museum which has seen little change since it opened in November 2013, displays no information on new signatures or dates on CB banknotes. The CB website with statistics of currency issue has not been updated for over three years.

In a reply by the CB to my Right to Information RTI 0001/2020 about related issues, I was informed on 2020 May 13th that:

"The CB has ordered banknotes with signatures of Hon. Mahinda Rajapaksa, Prime Minister/Minister of Finance and Deshamanya Prof. W D Lakshman, Governor of the CBSL with the date of 2019.12.24."

However, the banknote printer DeLaRue's branch in Biyagama was closed for two months because of COVID-19 and just reopened in late May according to their reports online. I doubt the public will see any of these new banknotes this year, since the CB has a large stock of older banknotes they will issue before then. For example, the Rs 50 dated 2017-05-22 is still to be seen in circulation. The Rs 20 of the same date was first issued only in March 2020. See table for lapse from date on banknote to first month of issue:

Previously one could monitor the highest prefix seen in circulation and estimate the rate of the CB currency issue. For a proper audit, the CB needed to issue banknotes in prefix Serial order. Banknotes used to be bundled in neat packs of 1000 with the first and last Serial Numbers printed on a slip on top. About 0.2-0.3 per cent of banknotes manually detected to be damaged were replaced with banknotes, which since 1991 had a Z-prefix to Serial Number. Collectors seek these rare banknotes which are about 400 times more uncommon than a regular prefix.

To read the complete article, see:
Central Bank printing new money (http://www.sundaytimes.lk/200621/business-times/central-bank-printing-new-money-406136.html)

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web