{"id":128250,"date":"2022-08-29T16:00:30","date_gmt":"2022-08-29T23:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=128250"},"modified":"2022-08-29T16:00:30","modified_gmt":"2022-08-29T23:00:30","slug":"sri-lankas-president-to-cut-spending-in-interim-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2022\/08\/29\/sri-lankas-president-to-cut-spending-in-interim-budget\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka’s president to cut spending in interim budget"},"content":{"rendered":"

Courtesy Reuters.com<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

COLOMBO, Aug 29 (Reuters) – Sri Lanka’s president is set to slash expenditure when he presents an interim budget on Tuesday to see the crisis-ridden country through the rest of the year, amid discussions with the International Monetary Fund on a bailout package.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tourism-dependent nation of 22 million is facing its worst economic crisis since independence in 1948, with foreign exchange reserves crashing, public finances in a mess and the costs of basic goods rocketing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having become president after his predecessor was ousted in a popular uprising in July, Ranil Wickremesinghe told Reuters earlier this month that the interim budget would focus on fiscal consolidation measures agreed with the IMF. read more<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said that expenditure would be slashed by a “few hundred billion” rupees, including on defence, to channel funds for welfare and to repay interest on loans. Sri Lanka aimed for 3.9 trillion rupees ($10.99 billion) expenditure in its last budget, presented in November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wickremesinghe, who is also the finance minister, is expected to outline measures to support low income communities worst hit by the financial crisis and announce fresh taxes to shrink a double digit deficit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A full-year budget for 2023 is likely to be presented in November, where a broader recovery plan will be outlined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The interim budget will likely aim for a 9.9% deficit for 2022, which is lower than the earlier 12%,” said Lakshini Fernando, macroeconomist at investment firm Asia Securities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“But expenditure and revenue targets will be difficult to achieve given the cooling economy and welfare demands.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The island nation missed interest payments due on June 3, June 28, and July 18, and a principal payment due on July 25, according to rating agency S&P Global.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An IMF team that arrived in the country last week concludes its visit on Wednesday, with Sri Lankan officials saying they expect to have a staff-level agreement in place to advance talks for an emergency loan of around $3 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The IMF team has also discussed restructuring Sri Lanka’s debt of about $29 billion. read more<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

($1 = 355.0000 Sri Lankan rupees)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Courtesy Reuters.com COLOMBO, Aug 29 (Reuters) – Sri Lanka’s president is set to slash expenditure when he presents an interim budget on Tuesday to see the crisis-ridden country through the rest of the year, amid discussions with the International Monetary Fund on a bailout package. The tourism-dependent nation of 22 million is facing its worst […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-128250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128250","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=128250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128250\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}