Courtesy Hiru News

Foreign media cited sources familiar with the Paris Club, to say that the group has informed the International Monetary Fund of their willingness to support Sri Lanka’s debt re-structuring.

As it stands, only India has confirmed its participation in the restructuring process, with the IMF accepting a letter in this regard.

Meanwhile, China’s role in these proceedings remains relatively unclear. While the country gave Sri Lanka a two year debt moratorium as a short term measure for debt relief, the world’s largest creditor nation has been persistent in its calls for commercial and multilateral creditors to take part in Sri Lanka’s debt restructuring so as to share the burden fairly.

China has however expressed its willingness to work on medium and long terms plans in that vein, and Central Bank Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe is also confident that Sri Lanka will receive the needed assistance from the country.

China’’’s stance that the burden of debt servicing should be shared equally is also echoed by the Paris Club, who said in a statement that they intend to keep the momentum and start the restructuring negotiations in coordination with all relevant stakeholders, to ensure fair burden sharing, transparency and comparability of treatment.