Sri Lanka resumes bailout discussions with IMF, finance ministry says
Sri Lanka has resumed technical discussions with the International Monetary Fund on a potential bailout after a new government took office, the finance ministry said on Friday.
Discussions with the multilateral lender started in April under former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. The Sri Lankan government hopes to secure an Extended Fund Facility (EFF) – which would be conditional on making economic reforms – to help battle the worst economic crisis since independence in 1948.
Ranil Wickremesinghe was appointed as president after Rajapaksa was ousted on July 13 by a popular uprising following months of severe shortages of fuel, food and medicines.
Wickremesinghe, who served six terms as prime minister, also hopes to restructure Sri Lanka’s debt.
The talks with IMF were highly successful and Sri Lanka is working with advisers to reach consensus on a deal with creditors, the government said.
The South Asian nation of 22 million has $12 billion overseas debt with private creditors. It defaulted on a bond payment earlier this year and is struggling to pay for imports of basic goods.
(Reuters)
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Let’s face it, these bailout discussion will continue until cows come home. Why, because the powers that be that control IMF behind the scene (Ummmm, now we wonder who they are?) are not ready to just yet release any bailout even if tomorrow there is mass starvation deaths in Sri Lanka.
Agree. It is a carrot at the end of a stick that being raise each time you reach it. SL is a country people used to force government to provide everything subsidised, and politicians are happy to borrow to subsidise and promise further subsidies to get power. Something got to give, the poorest going to starve and die unless the rest of the people going to share and grow our own. Rs tried develop the least painful way by borrowing outside IMF, but in a country corruption run from top to the bottom, people who had the control, helped themselves. Then another two or three suddenly free-floated the SLR. It beggars belief, after seeing the ques for fuel where our own are roasting in the sun for days, there are so many bastXds hoarding such vast quantities of fuel and still the top political opportunists like Sarath Fonseka calling for further upheaval in SL. In Europe and elsewhere tourists are on the move en masse. Thanks to the Avajathaka Aragale, nobody seems to come any more.