NAIROBI - Mauritius' central bank sold $200 million to commercial banks, representing its largest ever single intervention on the domestic currency market, it said on Wednesday.

The Mauritian rupee has weakened 1.5% against the dollar since the start of the year, and more than 5% in April alone, data from Refinitiv showed.

The rupee was trading at 42.80/43.10 on Wednesday, the data showed.

The central bank sold dollars to banks at 42.95 rupees per dollar, compared to 43.15 per dollar at its previous intervention on April 8, the bank said.

"The economic conditions which resulted in a depreciation of the rupee since the beginning of the pandemic have largely faded away," the bank said.

"As the economic prospects improve, the bank expects demand and supply conditions on the foreign exchange market to further improve, thus reversing the depreciation trend."

(Reporting by Hereward Holland Editing by James Macharia Chege)