Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake who attended an interactive business meeting on Tuesday (February 24th) revealed, that the nation’s real debt burden, including contingent liabilities, is 9.6 trillion rupees, as opposed to the previous estimate of 7.9 trillion.

The event titled “Sri Lanka – the way forward” was organized by the American Chamber of Commerce in Sri Lanka. The event brought together a distinguished gathering including many senior ministers of the current government as well as the top businessmen in the country.

Addressing the gathering Minister of Finance Ravi Karunanayake stated that the current administration inherited an economy with a national debt of 7.9 trillion rupees, however when the contingent liabilities are factored the figure rises to 9.6 trillion.

Speaking on the topic of Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) the minister stated that at first glance FDIs looked sufficient, however a closer look at them revealed that a majority of them were government based investments which stifled money that clouded private sector FDIs. Min. Karunanayake noted that this has had an adverse impact on the economy of the country ..

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