Sri Lanka among countries with unsustainable debt - IMF Chief

COLOMBO (News 1st); IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said that  Sri Lanka is among the countries where the debt situation is no longer sustainable.

She was speaking at the Africa Adaptation Summit at the Global Center on Adaptation's in the Netherlands.

"We must heed the call to embrace the whole of humanity and come together in the most testing moments. I endorse this from the bottom of my heart. We must also recognize that these shocks have exhausted people. People are tired of the pandemic, and now they are being hit with inflation," she said.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said that in many countries, fiscal space is gone, and the debt situation for 25 percent of emerging markets is no longer sustainable. "Just think of Sri Lanka and many countries that are in a similar position," she noted.

"We even see a country with strong fundamentals like Ghana in a situation where it is harder to access markets because of exogenous shocks. And among poorer countries, over 60 percent are in or at risk of debt distress. So, when I look at this picture, what is the conclusion? We can no longer think of our economies as relatively simple mechanisms which function so long as there is a strong banking sector and financial stability. Remember—after the financial crisis, the world regulated the banking sector to make it more resilient. Now, that concept of resilience must expand to become more comprehensive. We need resilient people that are educated, that are healthy, and have the security of some social protection. We need not just resilient economies. We need resilient societies in which people feel that they belong, that there is fairness, that there are jobs for them. And we need a resilient planet," she added.