Courtesy Hiru News

The Cabinet of Ministers at its meeting on Monday approved to service of 2.6 billion dollars in debt payments due in the first half of this year, whilst vesting the authorisation powers to the Treasury Secretary to provide the necessary funds.

Cabinet Co-Spokesman and Minister Bandula Gunawardena said at the post-Cabinet meeting media briefing Sri Lanka will continue to pay back multilateral loans obtained from institutions like the World Bank and Asian Development Bank as well as the bilateral partners.

As per him, of the total of 2.6 billion dollars, just over 2 billion dollars is for loan repayments whilst 540 million dollars is for interest payments.

There are also 709 million dollars in dollar-denominated Sri Lanka Development Bonds to be paid with 46 million dollars as interest payments.

The total amount payable in the first half of 2023 is just under 300 million dollars from what Sri Lanka is expecting from the International Monetary Fund via an Extended Fund Facility of 2.9 billion dollars within the first quarter of the year.

Minister Gunawardana said “Every Government has been doing this,”adding that the Parliament has approved financing the Budget 2023 with loans amounting to almost 5 trillion rupees via financial tools such as SDBs, treasury bills and treasury bonds.

He also said that these debt repayments will be done within the borrowing limits set in the Budget for 2023.