Cabinet to be briefed on IMF staff report on Lankan economy next week

• An IMF staff team completed a report related to the Article IV Consultation in Decemberlast year
• Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa scheduled to brief the Cabinet on IMF report 
• SL has so far resisted to seek IMF assistance to restructure debt 
• SL has US$ foreign obligations to the tune of US$ 6.9bn this year including interest 

Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa is scheduled to brief the Cabinet of Ministers next week on an International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff report on the country’s economy.
Trade Minister Bandula Gunewardena yesterday revealed that the report is scheduled to be taken up for discussion at next week’s Cabinet meeting and refused to divulge further details.
Following a visit to Sri Lanka, a staff team from the IMF completed a report related to the Article IV Consultation in December last year. The report is expected to be discussed by the Executive Board of IMF later this month.
“We expect (the report) to be discussed by the Executive Board in the normal way, probably later this month towards the end of this month,” an IMF spokesperson said recently.
Sri Lanka has so far not requested financial support from the IMF despite the ongoing forex crisis.
However, Gunewardena noted that Sri Lanka is constantly engaging with the IMF being a member country of it. Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa recently said Sri Lanka had sought expert advice from the IMF, though it was later revealed that the engagement was a routine thing. 
The government and the Central Bank have pinned their hopes on bilateral and multilateral funding lines, other credit lines and swap arrangements to ride out the current crisis. The Central Bank has said that Sri Lanka is trying to restructure its debt without IMF’s help.

 However, despite such efforts, Sri Lanka’s foreign reserves have continuously plummeted, and as per the latest Central Bank data, the reserves stood at US$ 2.36 billion.
Sri Lanka has outstanding sovereign bonds amounting to US$ 12.55 billion, with US$ 1 billion of the bonds maturing in July. As for this year, Sri Lanka has foreign obligations to the tune of US$ 6.9 billion including interest payments.