23 October 2023 12:13 am Views - 605
Sri Lanka plans to utilise the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) second tranche of the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) for settling arrears owed to multilateral creditors and accelerating the
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Shehan Semasinghe
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debt restructuring process State Minister of Finance Shehan Semasinghe said.
Last week Sri Lanka entered into a staff-level agreement with the IMF on the first review of the US$ 3 billion, 48- month EFF. Upon approval of the first review by the IMF Executive Board, Sri Lanka is expected to receive the second tranche of US$ 330 million of the EFF.
Semasinghe said the staff-level agreement will enable Sri Lanka to settle arrears owed to multilateral creditors including the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, while expediting the debt restructuring process.
The State Minister made these remarks at a press conference held at the Presidential Media Centre (PMC) last Friday, under the theme ‘Collective path to a stable country’.
The approval from the IMF Executive Board hinges on the successful implementation of all prior actions by the Sri Lankan authorities, and the completion of financing assurance reviews, which involve verifying the significant progress made in debt restructuring to ensure that the restructuring will be concluded in a timely manner and in alignment with the programme’s debt targets.