The reserves were helped by a sovereign bond sale and central bank dollar purchases, he told a forum organized by Fitch, a rating agency.
Sri Lanka plans to end 2017 with 7.2 billion US dollars of forex reserves, he said.
The central bank had purchased 700 million US dollar from currency markets so far this year and intends to purchase 500 million dollars more, he said.
The central bank bought 257 million dollars from commercial bank in April, but did not sell any dollars to defend the currency, data showed.
The central bank is no longer printing money heavily and rate are also higher than when it precipitated the balance of payments crisis in the first quarter of 2015.
The budget deficit is also narrowing. (Colombo/June08/2017)