SL still few more steps away from celebrating debt restructuring success

Treasury Secretary Mahinda Siriwardana yesterday said the country is still few more steps away from celebrating the success of nearly two years of debt restructuring exercise.
“We have more steps to be completed before we can celebrate success. While we have reached an agreement on the Joint Working Framework with the external commercial borrowers, we are waiting for the finalisation of formal assessments by the International Monetary Fund and Official Creditor Committee (OCC). We hope the OCC will continue to take a constructive and positive approach in this assessment of comparable treatment as well,” Siriwardana said.

He went on to outline Sri Lanka’s need to step up efforts to reach the full economic recovery and stressed the need to stay put on the reform path, despite the calamities. 
“Sri Lanka’s journey towards full economic recovery is far from over. We have come a long way supported by the partners such as Japan but this is not a time to be cognisant; we must continue, with discipline, the economic reforms introduced over the last two years and refrain from falling back into the past bad practices and habits,” said Siriwardena.
He reiterated that in the past, Sri Lanka made the mistake of moving away from reforms after some degree of stability restored. 
“We can no longer afford to do that and we cannot certainly expect the international community to help us again,” he elaborated.