* This article was written prior to the government announcement last night about the relaxation of curfew in Colombo from Wednesday (22) onwards. Despite the last week witnessing the opening up of export-related factories and signs of growing freedom for economic activity, the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) will remain closed until curfew is lifted. According to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), this is due to the inability to have a free and fair market for all stakeholders. “According to the SEC Act, one of our main objectives is to have a free and fair market. When there is islandwide curfew, we cannot have a free and fair market. There is an issue with mobility. The banking sector is not fully functional for investors to settle brokers and for brokers to settle investors. Furthermore, investors will not be able to visit broker offices. So as long as there is curfew, we will not open the market,” SEC Director - External Relations and Surveillance Thushara Jayaratne told The Sunday Morning Business. The CSE has been closed since 20 March, when it was opened for a curtailed trading period after being closed for four days due to the Covid-19 outbreak. Curfew was imposed that evening and since then, there has been no trading. When contacted, CSE Chairman Ray Abeywardena said that he is hopeful the curfew would be lifted so that trading could be carried out, even for a limited duration. “We are also hopeful that from next week (this week) onwards, curfew will be lifted even for a limited period so that we can trade at least for a few hours. It is not very easy because banks are also working on a limited basis and there will be settlement issues. There should also be curfew passes as a lot of our workers, especially in our IT department, are from areas outside Colombo such as Gampaha and Panadura.” Colombo Stockbrokers Association (CSBA) President Kosala Gamage echoed similar sentiments, saying that while stockbrokers are keen to open the market, the practical issues needed to be sorted out first. “Of course we want to open up, because for almost one month the broking community has not had any revenue. We have also been debating this at length. However, there are issues such as the lack of availability of curfew passes and the practical issues related to settlements.” Despite many countries around the world being in a state of lockdown, the stock exchanges of these countries have generally been open for trading. During the first week of the Covid-19 outbreak in Sri Lanka, regular trading at the CSE was halted for 30 minutes on three days after the S&P SL20 Index, which includes the 20 largest companies by total market capitalisation listed on the CSE, fell by 5% on each day.