Colombo, Apr 30 (IANS): The Central Bank of Sri Lanka announced that the island nation will remove regulations that made exporters convert their foreign currency earnings into rupees in the near future.

In recent months, the central bank imposed a number of regulations forcing exporters to convert their US dollars within a set period of time to bolster Sri Lanka's foreign reserves, reports Xinhua news agency.

"For services exports like IT and tourism, we will remove the mandatory conversion requirement," Central Bank Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe told a press conference.

"We have no way to track these services. Apparently, some exporters are not bringing in foreign currency they make because of the mandatory conversion rule," he said.

He added that the central bank is also planning to relax a regulation that made tourists pay hotels in dollars.

Sri Lanka has been suffering a shortage of foreign exchange with its reserve assets standing at around $1.9 billion at the end of March.