{"id":128640,"date":"2022-09-20T16:11:53","date_gmt":"2022-09-20T23:11:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=128640"},"modified":"2022-09-20T16:11:53","modified_gmt":"2022-09-20T23:11:53","slug":"india-starts-debt-restructuring-talks-with-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2022\/09\/20\/india-starts-debt-restructuring-talks-with-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"India starts debt-restructuring talks with Sri Lanka"},"content":{"rendered":"

Courtesy Adaderana<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

India said on Tuesday it had begun talks with Sri Lanka on restructuring its debt and promised to support the crisis-hit neighbour mainly through long-term investments after providing nearly $4 billion of financial aid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka, a tourism-dependent South Asian country of 22 million, is struggling with its worst economic crisis in more than seven decades, which has led to shortages of essentials and the ouster of a president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The country earlier this month reached a preliminary deal with the International Monetary Fund for a loan of about $2.9 billion contingent on it receiving financing assurances from official creditors and negotiations with private creditors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The High Commission of India in Colombo said it held the first round of debt talks with Sri Lankan officials on Sept. 16.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The discussions held in a cordial atmosphere symbolise India\u2019s support to early conclusion and approval of a suitable IMF programme for Sri Lanka,\u201d the High Commission said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka will make a presentation to its international creditors on Friday, laying out the full extent of its economic troubles and plans for a debt restructuring. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Indian High Commission also said New Delhi would continue to support Colombo in all possible ways, in particular by promoting long-term investments from India in key economic sectors\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

India\u2019s support to Sri Lanka this year has included a $400 million currency swap, a $1 billion credit line for essential goods and a $500 million line for fuel. In addition, India has also deferred payment on Sri Lankan imports of about $1.2 billion and given a credit line of $55 million for fertiliser imports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reuters reported last week, citing sources, that India did not plan to provide fresh financial support to Sri Lanka, as the island\u2019s battered economy had begun to stabilise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The High Commission said India had ongoing development projects worth about $3.5 billion in Sri Lanka, whose president earlier this month asked his officials to resolve obstacles to projects backed by India. He did not specify the obstacles or the projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Ranil Wickremesinghe has said Sri Lanka will turn a free trade agreement with India into a comprehensive economic and technological partnership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: Reuters<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Courtesy Adaderana India said on Tuesday it had begun talks with Sri Lanka on restructuring its debt and promised to support the crisis-hit neighbour mainly through long-term investments after providing nearly $4 billion of financial aid. Sri Lanka, a tourism-dependent South Asian country of 22 million, is struggling with its worst economic crisis in more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[193],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-128640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-imf-bailout-package"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128640","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=128640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128640\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}