Sri Lanka's President to meet Paris Club next week

by Staff Writer 13-06-2023 | 4:02 PM

COLOMBO (News 1st); Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe will head to the UK and France next week to meet with the Paris Club.

This was confirmed the Minister Bandula Gunawardena, the spokesperson for the Sri Lankan Cabinet.

On the 12th of April 2022, the Central Bank Governor and the Finance Secretary speaking to reporters said that Sri Lanka will temporarily suspend foreign debt payments to avoid a hard default.

It's been over a year since Sri Lanka decided to suspend foreign debt payments.

Sri Lanka's external debt is estimated to be around $42 billion.

This debt is owed to a variety of creditors, including foreign governments, multilateral institutions, and private investors.

The government has been unable to meet its debt payments, and this has led to a downgrade of Sri Lanka's credit rating.

The government has said that it plans to restructure its external debt in order to make it more sustainable. This means that the government will need to agree with its creditors on a new repayment schedule that is more affordable for Sri Lanka.

The government has said that it is committed to restructuring its external debt.

However, the success of the restructuring process will depend on a number of factors, including the willingness of creditors to cooperate and the ability of the government to implement the necessary economic reforms.

On 13th April in Washington D.C., Japan, India and France announced the launch of the debt restructuring negotiation process on Sri Lanka among official bilateral creditors to coordinate restructuring of Sri Lanka’s debt and demonstrated our strong commitment to leading the debt negotiation process of Sri Lanka.

The process will be open to all the official bilateral creditors, and it is vital for all the creditors to gather and discuss the debt restructuring in a comparable and transparent manner.

Japan said it continues working closely with the creditor countries for an early conclusion of the debt restructuring process.

The launch of the process is an important milestone, which could pave the way for solving the debt issues of middle-income economies like Sri Lanka.

As a long-standing partner, Japan said it will continue to support the people of Sri Lanka in overcoming the difficulties the nation faces and bringing itself back on a track of robust development.