6 January 2022 12:04 pm Views - 195
Allocating Forex for the $ 500 million international sovereign bond which is maturing on January 18 2022 may be aimed at satisfying a few local people who had bought bonds expecting a 200 percent yield maturity, Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) said yesterday.
“ I am not saying this is the case but if it is the case the move is to satisfy a few people who expect a high yield maturity rate which may be as high as 200 percent,” SJB MP Harsha de Silva said in response to a question to this effect at a press conference last morning.
The heads of the SJB led Centre of Economic policies which comprises Dr. de Silva, Kabir Hashim and Eran Wickramaratne who had the joint press conference said the debt analysis research has revealed that the debt situation is worse than expected.
“We are not saying the government should not pay the debts but the issue is that Minister of Finance Basil Rajapaksa had said in his latest cabinet paper that Sri Lanka’s debt Services is $ 6.8 billion in 2022 but had not come up on how the government is going for a settlement,” Dr. de Silva said.
MP Hashim said Sri Lanka should follow Ukrane which went into a debt restructuring program.
Also the SJB MPs claimed that they have come up with a program to win the confidence of donor nations and agencies by going for a dialogue with them, they said a future SJB government will introduce a regulatory system for the financial markets while an effective social system will be introduced. The MPs said the SJB had already studied foreign social security systems including the Indian system which is based on Adhaar developed by Nandan Nilekani.
Also the MPs said the policy of their party is to follow the example of Bangladesh and Vietnam which have managed to increase their foreign reserves over the years.