Date set for Sri Lanka to present debt restructuring, IMF bailout plans to creditors
- The Finance Ministry said a call on September 23 would be open to all its external creditors and be ‘an interactive [Q&A] session’ and update
- Its borrowings are complex. Estimates of the total range from US$85 billion to over US$100 billion – owed to China, India and Japan, among others
The country’s Ministry of Finance said in a statement via legal firm Clifford Chance that an online call on Friday, September 23 would be open to all its external creditors and be “an interactive session” in which participants can ask questions.
Sri Lanka’s woes came to a head in July when then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country and resigned after violent public protests.
His replacement Ranil Wickremesinghe has managed to reach a preliminary deal with the IMF that if formalised would provide the country US$2.9 billion in loans over four years.
“Authorities intend to update their external creditors on the most recent macroeconomic developments, the main objectives of the reform package agreed with the IMF … and the next steps of the debt restructuring process,” the statement dated September 17 said.
The impoverished population that forced Rajapaksa to flee still needs to accept Wickremesinghe, seen by many as of the same political ilk, and who faces a bristling opposition.
The country’s borrowings are so complex that estimates of the total range from US$85 billion to well over US$100 billion. Perhaps most challenging of all, competing regional powers China, India and Japan must also find common ground on how to reduce debt they are owed by Colombo.