Once the agreement with IMF reached Rupee will gradually come down to 200 or 185 – President expresses hope

• SL will be led to the path of success similar to the Royal Cricket team
• Expresses hope that SL will be given at least ten more years to repay debt
• We will no longer be declared a bankrupt Nation 

While claiming that Sri Lanka will no longer be declared a  bankrupt nation in the next few days, President Ranil Wickremesinghe  yesterday expressed hope that once Sri Lanka entered into the agreement  with the International Monitory Fund (IMF) the Rupee will gradually come  down to 200 or 185.  

“We will no longer be declared a bankrupt Nation, but a  Nation that can restructure its debts. That will happen in the next few  days,” the President said, adding that “Compared to the Dollar, the Rupee  has now gone up to 300. Once we have this agreement with the IMF, the  Rupee will gradually come down to 200 or 185.”   

The President emphasized that the Royal College cricket  team’s effective captaincy ultimately led to the team’s victory at a  time when all the matches were being lost and that his effort is to  lift the defeated country to the path of victory similar to what the  captain of the Royal College cricket team did.  

“The results of the IMF Board of Directors only give us a  breathing space where they will say that we are no longer bankrupt and  we can restructure the debt. So all the money we have to pay this year, I  hope we will be given at least ten more years to repay it,” the  President said.  

“In the meantime, there will be new debts. We had to borrow  money because all our foreign exchange earnings for a year are not  sufficient to meet all our needs,” he said.  
Further explaining, the President said that once the  agreement was reached… “Now we have a period of stabilization and that is  four years. We have agreed with the IMF, they have given us targets to  achieve. We have agreed that the budget will not be a deficit and that  the budget will have a surplus by 2026, and that we will then be able to  pay back the money that we borrowed. Now that is not a very good  situation. Once we stabilize the economy, and we can restructure the  debts, we must also find means of paying off all our debts and coming  into a situation where we have a surplus in the country; every year,  like Japan, Singapore, Germany, or Korea. At the end of the day, we will  have a surplus. Our foreign exchange earnings will exceed our  requirements for the time being where we have to import fuel, medicine,  and certain other basic foodstuffs. So that is the next stage.  

In order to win this match: this encounter, stabilizing the  economy alone is not enough. You must make the economy grow. Unless you  make the economy grow, we will go down again.  
President Wickremesinghe made this statement while  addressing the 32nd Interact District Conference held at Temple Trees  last morning (19).  

The President added that the 25-year plan to make Sri Lanka  a successful nation by 2048 has already been implemented and it can  only be achieved with the commitment of the current youth.  

This conference was organized by St. Thomas’ College,  Wesley College, Vishaka Vidyalaya, and Girls’ High School, Kandy, and it  drew about 700 students from various schools all across the island.