In talks with IMF, Sri Lanka is participating as bankrupt country: PM Wickremesinghe

July 05, 2022 13:48

Protests in Sri Lanka in April against the govt

Sri Lanka Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on Tuesday said that the island country is participating in negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a bankrupt country.

In his speech in Parliament today regarding the economic recovery plan, Prime Minister of the crisis-ridden country noted that a round of negotiations has been successfully conducted with the IMF.

"Our country has held talks with the IMF on many occasions before. But this time the situation is different from all those previous occasions," he said in Lankan Parliament.

"We are now participating in the negotiations as a bankrupt country. Therefore, we have to face a more difficult and complicated situation than previous negotiations," Wickremensinghe said. Sri Lanka has been facing the worst economic crisis since independence in 1948, leading to an acute shortage of essential items like food, medicine, cooking gas and fuel across the island nation.

The country, with an acute foreign currency crisis that resulted in foreign debt default, had announced in April that it is suspending nearly USD 7 billion foreign debt repayment due for this year out of about USD 25 billion due through 2026. Sri Lanka's total foreign debt stands at USD 51 billion.

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