{"id":122447,"date":"2022-01-28T16:36:13","date_gmt":"2022-01-28T23:36:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=122447"},"modified":"2022-01-28T16:36:13","modified_gmt":"2022-01-28T23:36:13","slug":"discussion-within-govt-on-approaching-imf-over-financial-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2022\/01\/28\/discussion-within-govt-on-approaching-imf-over-financial-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Discussion within govt on approaching IMF over financial crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Courtesy Adaderana<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"\u0d86\u0dbb\u0dca\u0dae\u0dd2\u0d9a \u0d85\u0dbb\u0dca\u0db6\u0dd4\u0daf\u0dba\u0dd9\u0db1\u0dca \u0d9c\u0ddc\u0da9\u0d91\u0db1\u0dca\u0db1 IMF \u0dc3\u0dc4\u0dcf\u0dba \u0d85\u0db4\u0dda\u0d9a\u0dca\u0dc2\u0dcf\u0dc0\u0dd9\u0db1\u0dca - \u0db8\u0dd4\u0daf\u0dbd\u0dca \u0d87\u0db8\u0dad\u0dd2 \u0d9a\u0dd2\u0dba\u0dba\u0dd2\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xV0erSFFGHk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Sri Lanka is negotiating debt relief with international bondholders and is weighing an approach to the IMF, as the country struggles with a foreign reserve crisis that has left it close to default, the Financial Times reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Basil Rajapaksa, finance minister, told the Financial Times in an interview that the government was negotiating with everybody\u201d and trying all our options\u201d to avoid default and alleviate the economic crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We have [international sovereign bonds] which we have to repay back, so we are negotiating with them. Then we have creditors and we have to service their debt, so whether we can have an adjustment or some type of thing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rajapaksa added that the government would think about a programme with the IMF . . . All those discussions are going as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sri Lanka has almost $7bn in debt payments due this year but less than $3bn of foreign reserves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some Sri Lankan officials have insisted that the country can avoid this fate by boosting foreign currency reserves through tourism and exports while securing additional assistance from China and India, two of its largest benefactors. The central bank governor this week told CNBC that we don\u2019t need relief\u201d from the IMF.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Minister Rajapaksa insisted the government could manage but was preparing for contingencies. I know it\u2019s very difficult because we have to pay this year $6.9bn and, additional to that, we have to find money for medicine, raw material, fuel, all these things,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Asked if he was negotiating a restructuring with bondholders, Rajapaksa replied, something like that\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Obviously you can understand what we want and you can understand what the bondholders would like to have,\u201d he was quoted as saying by the Financial Times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Source: The Financial Times<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>&#8211;Agencies<\/em><br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy Adaderana Sri Lanka is negotiating debt relief with international bondholders and is weighing an approach to the IMF, as the country struggles with a foreign reserve crisis that has left it close to default, the Financial Times reported. Basil Rajapaksa, finance minister, told the Financial Times in an interview that the government was negotiating [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-122447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122447","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=122447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122447\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}