aug 18 reuters  the central bank of sri lanka cbsl kept its key rates steady on thursday as widely expected as it awaits the impact of past hikes to trickle through the economy while a fall in global commodity prices is also expected to soothe domestic inflation the standing lending facility lkslfreci rate stayed at 1550 while the standing deposit facility rate lksdfreci remained at 1450 eleven out of 15 economists and analysts polled by reuters had expected rates to remain unchanged the central bank has raised rates by a record 950 basis points so far this year to battle high inflation in sri lanka which is wilting under a severe economic crisis a severe foreign exchange shortage has left the government struggling to pay for essential imports of fuel fertilisers food and medicine inflation hit 608 yearonyear in july and food costs expanded by a searing 909 according to latest government data in arriving at this decision the board considered the latest modelbased projections which point towards a larger than expected contraction in activity and a faster than expected easing of price pressures cbsl said in a statement the bank said the measures taken by it and the government so far would help contain aggregate demand pressures while an anticipated decline in global commodity prices would pass through to domestic prices the impact of persisted supply side disruptions primarily due to shortages of power and energy and uncertainties associated with sociopolitical developments are expected to have caused significant adverse effects on economic growth in q2 2022 the cbsl said tens of thousands of people protesting against the crisis forced the ouster of the president gotabaya rajapaksa in july and he was replaced by ranil wickremesinghe the central bank said growth was likely to remain subdued in the third quarter as well reporting by swati bhat editing by muralikumar anantharaman and raju gopalakrishnan