• Not possible for SL to seek assistance from donors without an assurance from the IMF on assistance

By Yohan Perera and Ajith Siriwardana  

Sri Lanka intends to enter into an official level agreement with the IMF by the end of July, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe informed Parliament yesterday.   

rom any donor without an assurance from the IMF on assistance,” the Prime Minister said in a special statement in the House.   

“Here the most important is our debt restructuring plan. We will together with the teams from Lazard and Clifford Chance do our utmost to complete the framework for this plan before the end of July. Meanwhile, next Monday, a team of representatives from the U.S. Department of the Treasury will also arrive in Sri Lanka. We ensured that we created the background necessary for the immediate arrival of these three teams in Sri Lanka. We will conduct discussions with them. Their presence in the country will now allow us to hold meetings together with all three teams. It will only further assist us in expediting our programme” the Prime Minister said.   

“The only safe option before us now is to hold discussions with the International Monetary Fund. In fact, this is our only option. We must take this path. Our aim is to hold discussions with the IMF and arrive at an agreement to obtain an additional credit facility. As the next step, we hope to form a foundation to stabilize the economy and implement an immediate programme to increase our export revenue,” he stressed.  “Parallel to this, we will organise a credit aid conference which will be led by India, Japan and China, our main lending countries. However, there have been some conflicts and disagreements between us in the recent past. We are working towards resolving these and fostering friendly relations once again. Each country has different processes for granting loans. Through the credit aid conference, we hope to arrive at a general consensus on the lending processes,” the Prime Minister said.  

The Ceylon Petroleum Corporation is USD 700 million in debt. As a result, no country or organization in the world is willing to provide fuel to us. They are even reluctant to provide fuel for cash. We have taken loans amounting to USD 4 billion under the Indian credit line.