A round of debt restructuring talks the government had originally hoped to hold with Sri Lanka’s creditors has been postponed.
Citing the Minister of State for Finance, Reuters reported that yesterday’s meeting was postponed to allow Central Bank and Treasury officials to provide clarifications requested by the country’s creditors.
Last September, the Sri Lankan government officially started negotiations with the International Monetary Fund to obtain a financial guarantee of 2.9 billion US dollars.
But before getting this money, it is necessary to obtain financial guarantees for debt restructuring from major creditors including China, Japan and India.
‘Different creditors have different issues that need to be clarified. Therefore, it was decided to set a new date for another round of negotiations after these clarifications were first announced,’ Reuters reports quoting State Minister for Finance Shehan Semasinghe.
However, he also said that ‘the dates have not been decided yet’ for the new round of negotiations.
The media report also stated that the Minister of State did not elaborate on what clarifications the creditors wanted or what exactly was being discussed between them and Sri Lanka’s Central Bank and Treasury officials.
Sri Lanka had previously set a target of obtaining IMF board-level approval in December for the currently planned four-year financial funding programme.
“We focus more on financial assurances. So far, no bilateral creditor has informed us that they will not support us.” The state minister said, “We have a goal. We are working hard to meet it in December.”
