{"id":124985,"date":"2022-05-04T12:28:56","date_gmt":"2022-05-04T19:28:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=124985"},"modified":"2022-05-04T12:28:56","modified_gmt":"2022-05-04T19:28:56","slug":"sri-lanka-to-replace-unrealistic-budget-in-talks-to-extend-world-bank-aid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2022\/05\/04\/sri-lanka-to-replace-unrealistic-budget-in-talks-to-extend-world-bank-aid\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka to replace \u2018unrealistic\u2019 budget, in talks to extend World Bank aid"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Courtesy NewsIn.Asia<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>May 5 (Reuters) \u2013 Sri Lanka plans to replace its current unrealistic\u201d budget and is in talks with the World Bank to extend its support by $300 million to $700 million, the country\u2019s finance minister said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The island nation, hit hard by COVID-19 and short of revenue after steep tax cuts by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa\u2019s government, is critically short of foreign exchange and has sought an emergency bailout from the International Monetary Fund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rampant inflation and shortages of imported food, fuel and medicines have led to weeks of protests that have occasionally turned violent.<ins><\/ins>ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The existing budget is unrealistic, given our challenges,\u201d finance minister Ali Sabry told a parliament session.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We will bring in a new budget that will seek to address core issues of low public revenue.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sabry said he wanted to increase tax revenue as a share of gross domestic product to 14% within the next two years, from 8.7% now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sri Lanka will appoint within the next two weeks financial and legal advisers for a proposed restructure of its sovereign debt, Sabry said, adding that the government was keen to work with the IMF on structural reforms.<ins><\/ins><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is the only way to put the economy on a sustainable footing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy NewsIn.Asia May 5 (Reuters) \u2013 Sri Lanka plans to replace its current unrealistic\u201d budget and is in talks with the World Bank to extend its support by $300 million to $700 million, the country\u2019s finance minister said on Wednesday. The island nation, hit hard by COVID-19 and short of revenue after steep tax cuts [&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-124985","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\/124985","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=124985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124985\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}