{"id":122413,"date":"2022-01-26T17:32:13","date_gmt":"2022-01-27T00:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=122413"},"modified":"2022-01-26T17:32:13","modified_gmt":"2022-01-27T00:32:13","slug":"why-sl-does-not-need-to-become-pray-to-the-imf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2022\/01\/26\/why-sl-does-not-need-to-become-pray-to-the-imf\/","title":{"rendered":"Why SL does not need to become pray to the IMF"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Chula Rajapakse MNZM<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

SL\nhas laid out a plan that is in the public domain , for paying it\u2019s loan\ncommitments for 2022, 500 million paid 18\/1 and about 5 Billion mid 2022 and\nbeyond .
\n
\nInstead of securing bridging loans from the IMF , they have secured short term\nbridging  loans and currency swaps and loans , from friendly countries\nChina, India , Bangladesh and a Gulf country without IMF type adverse\nconditions, to satisfy its short term bridging needs. SL has also requested\nloan restructuring form one of their main lenders China, who is considering the\nrequest favourably  as we write. Hence clearly there is no need for\nfurther bridging loans from the IMF. The central bank of Ceylon also has\n teams of well educated,  bankers  with doctorates and more\nconversant with local needs and requirements , better suited to deal with SL\u2019s\nneeds than the  IMF. A further reason why IMF is not needed at least now,<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\nThe long term plan and need  is strengthening their FOREX reserves . This\nthey hope to achieve  through the COvid control following their very\nsuccessful vaccination drive , though their Booster vaccination uptake ( at\nnearly 5 million with target of at least 10 Million) needs to be  improved\n. With this the Re instituting of tourism and foreign worker remittances in 2022\nthe loss of  both of which were two main contributors to its current FOREX\nreserves going down, could be corrected. However the  background of a\nrundown economy following five years of Ayahapalana rule.( See graph) still\nremains but could be remedied among others  by the measures below.  
\n
\nThe  following additional  new sources  of Forex securing r\nactively being pursued successfully now. These include improving agro\nindustries like sugar cane, cardamoms, other spices etc, pharmaceutical\nmanufacture locally eg Import of Saline to stop completely in Feb \u201822, and\nmanufacture of upto 80% of currently imported pharmaceuticals by 2024\/25\nthrough manufacturing locally from new plants under construction in Hambantota\nFTZ\/EPZ and else where, other manufacturing industries started and being\nstarted including tyres, motor vehicles, Yatch and ship building, actively\nseeking and securing foreign investment in Colombo Port City in IT and Finance\ntechnology and Hambantota FTZ for manufacturing. Also securing foreign investment\nfor other projects including the development of the new Eastern, Southern and\nWestern terminals that would double Colombo Harbour capacity by 2024 bringing\nit from the 23rd to the 13th in the world by the volume of cargo it handles,.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also\nfurther developng bunkering capacity of Hambantota Harbour completely\nundermined by AYAHAPALANA the moment it came to power at Singapores behest, (\nSingapore looses out on bunkering because of Hambantota)  and and\ndevelopment of Hambantota\u2019s  \u2018potential as a trans shipment hub for both\nEast and West bound goods , development of the hitherto neglected and\nundermined Mattala air port to facilitate development of tourism in the region\ngoing upto Arugambay with it\u2019s unique potential for surfing including staging world\nchampionships as was being planned before the Tsunami,, and manufacturing\nindustry constructions in the adjacent Hambantota FTZ\/EPZ , improvements in\nApparel industry earnings through exploiting opportunities arising of Covid\nshut downs in other manufacturing sites, and in other ways .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally\naccessing natural gas reserves from the Mannar Basin appears to e a real\nprospect by 2024\/25. This would make a huge dent into the expenses insure in\nsecuring petroleum products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nother part of the strategy is  conserving available forex by the short\nterm reduction of non essential purchases from foreign sources like motor\n cars and some food items that could be grown in SL and manufacture items\nthat could b manufactured in SL These are already happening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Against this patently obvious strategies , I find the often repeated claim of, ” \u00a0there appears too no plan to overcome the FOREX problem\u201d , annoying to read, to say the least.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0However \u00a0a major challenge that SL faces in achieving these is\u00a0the relentless campaign of politically motivated bad mouthing , undermining and blatant sabotaging of every attempt of the govt to secure these . These acts of sabotage including through baseless rumor mongering r being \u00a0carried out by the political opposition and its trade unions, funded as during the war , through complex web of receipt and deception \u00a0woven by the Tiger diaspora, western governments , evangelical movement s and sections of Indian influences all of whom find the commitment of the current administrations to SL \u2018s revival an anathema and running contrary to their vested interests . They would. much rather have a dysfunctional administration like the Ayahapalana whom they could manipulate at will. They see the same potential in the SJB\/JVP combine with at least three Presidential aspirants apart from the one who would be their initial leader in \u00a0whom his one time leader on ION recently & openly expressed his lack of confidence. \u00a0

This is the same undermining & sabotaging that was also evident during 3 decade war against the Tiger terrorists whom SL overcame despite all their dire predictions & \u00a0prophesies of gloom and threats including visits from foreign ministers of UK and France in April \u201909 demanding that the offensive against the \u00a0terrorists be withdrawn coming a few days after a similar message from New Delhi delivered by special emissary .Perhaps they expected a similar response to that in 1989 by JRJ who in response to the Parippu drop at Vadamarachi, halted the offensive that if pursued would have ended the war with capture of Prabakaran within few hours if not few days. There could be \u00a0no better illustration of \u00a0the \u00a0contrasting commitment and steel of the two leaders.!

I have reasonable confidence of history repeating it self in Sri Lanka\u2019s favour this time too , protected by the purity of the intentions for the good of Sri Lanka. Dr. Chula Rajapakse MNZM

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Chula Rajapakse MNZM SL has laid out a plan that is in the public domain , for paying it\u2019s loan commitments for 2022, 500 million paid 18\/1 and about 5 Billion mid 2022 and beyond . Instead of securing bridging loans from the IMF , they have secured short term bridging  loans and currency […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-122413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122413\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}