A high level delegation of Sri Lankan officials is in Washington DC to negotiate with the IMF about an economic programme to help ease its balance of payment crisis.
Finance minister Ravi Karunanayake and Central Bank governor Arjuna Mahendran are attending the IMF and World Bank spring meetings in the US capital.
Mr. Mahendran told media on Tuesday that Sri Lanka’s requires $2.5bn, of which $1-1.4bn is expected from the IMF, while another $1bn will come from a reminbi-currency bond to be floated in China. The balance will come from domestic borrowings, The Sunday Times reported.
"W.A. Wijewardena, a former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank, told the Sunday Times that even the US$ 3 billion sought would be inadequate given the enormity of the balance of payments crisis. Repayment of foreign loans/interest in the next 12 month period alone amounts to US$ 4.5 billion. Thereafter, another US$ 4 billion would be needed but freely available reserves in the Central Bank remain at only US$ 5.5 million dollars. Sri Lanka was now a party to the IMF’s Special Data Dissemination Standards (SDDS). In keeping with this, the Central Bank is posting on its website data which could allow anyone to carefully determine the financial situation, he explained. Thus, with the analysis of financial data, the issues faced by the Government are transparent and cannot be hidden," the Sunday Times' economic column said.
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