By Uditha Jayasinghe
COLOMBO (Reuters) – Sri Lanka expects the IMF to announce a workers stage settlement on its third evaluate of the nation’s bailout programme on Friday, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake informed the primary sitting of the brand new parliament.
As soon as IMF govt board approval is given, an additional tranche of about $337 million in funds is predicted to be launched to Sri Lanka.
Dissanayake’s Marxist-leaning Nationwide Folks’s Energy (NPP) coalition received a report 159 seats within the 225-member parliament in a common election final week.
A delegation from the Worldwide Financial Fund is in Colombo for the third evaluate of its $2.9 billion programme and can maintain a press briefing on Saturday.
Dissanayake additionally outlined plans to finish a $12.5 billion debt restructuring with bondholders in December.
Sri Lanka will enter into particular person agreements with bilateral collectors together with Japan, China and India wanted to finish a $10 billion debt restructuring, he added.
“Our financial system is hanging by a thread. This financial system can’t take up any shocks. We now have to assume deeply and intimately in regards to the coverage selections we take. The second we obtained energy our precedence was to construct confidence and reassure stakeholders,” he informed lawmakers.
“We have to do rather more to place the financial system on a steady path.”
A nation of twenty-two million, Sri Lanka was crushed by a 2022 financial disaster triggered by a extreme scarcity of international foreign money that pushed it right into a sovereign default and triggered its financial system to shrink by 7.3% in 2022 and a couple of.3% final yr.
The president must current an interim finances within the subsequent few weeks, in addition to discover methods to cut back taxes and improve welfare, which have been his key election pledges, with out derailing the IMF programme.
Sri Lanka is predicted to develop 4.4% in 2024, in accordance with World Financial institution information, for the primary time in three years.
