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Colombo [Sri Lanka]Aug. 20 (ANI): A delegation from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will visit Sri Lanka next week.
According to the Colombo Communiqué, the International Monetary Fund said the visit will run from August 24 to August 31 and the main focus will be to continue discussions with Sri Lankan authorities on economic and financial reforms and policies.
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The purpose of this meeting is to help reach staff-level agreement on the future IMF Extended Fund Facility (EFF) in the near term.
With Sri Lanka’s public debt assessed as unsustainable, the IMF Executive Board’s approval of the EFF program requires full assurance from Sri Lankan creditors that debt sustainability will be restored.
According to the Colombo Gazette, the team will be led by Peter Breuer and Masahiro Nozaki.
Earlier, Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe noted on July 31 that protests had delayed a possible deal with the International Monetary Fund, which was progressing after he became prime minister.
“Due to extreme fuel and food shortages, instigators sweeping the country, the island nation has been unstable and negotiations have stalled in the past few weeks,” he said. The president reiterated that other countries were reluctant to provide financial aid to the island nation until an agreement with the International Monetary Fund come to an agreement. Sri Lanka needs to find a way to repay the loan as the IMF cannot fully address the problems facing the country.
It is worth noting that on July 9, due to the unprecedented economic crisis, Sri Lankan protesters broke into the private residence of then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and set fire to it. Just hours earlier, they had stormed the presidential palace following demands for the resignation of then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. In the yard, the security cordon set up by the police was removed, and he took a dip in the swimming pool and frolicked in his kitchen and home.
Earlier, police fired tear gas at protesters, but despite this, they entered his house and set it on fire.
Wickremesinghe, who was appointed prime minister in May, has since announced his resignation to ensure the continuation of the government and the safety of all citizens.
Wickremesinghe was sworn in as President of Sri Lanka in front of Chief Justice Jayantha Jayasuriya on July 21, following the resignation of then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. He was elected as president in an election held in Parliament on July 20.
Notably, Sri Lanka is suffering its worst economic crisis since independence in 1948, followed by successive waves of COVID-19 that threaten to undo years of development progress and severely hamper the country’s achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) capabilities). (ANI)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from the Syndicated News feed, the body of the content may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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