{"id":60418,"date":"2016-11-03T21:10:09","date_gmt":"2016-11-04T03:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=60418"},"modified":"2016-11-03T14:07:47","modified_gmt":"2016-11-03T21:07:47","slug":"joint-opposition-delighted-by-chinese-envoy-disproving-unp%e2%80%88accusations-higher-interest-rates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/11\/03\/joint-opposition-delighted-by-chinese-envoy-disproving-unp%e2%80%88accusations-higher-interest-rates\/","title":{"rendered":"Joint Opposition \u00a0delighted by Chinese envoy disproving UNP\u2008accusations  Higher interest rates"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>By Shamindra Ferdinando Courtesy The Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>November 3, 2016, 10:04 pm<\/p>\n<p>The Joint Opposition yesterday thanked China for publicly countering lies propagated by the UNP- led government as regards loans received by the Rajapaksa administration.<\/p>\n<p>Top JO spokesmen former External Affairs Minister Prof. G. L. Peiris and MP Bandula Gunawardena said that China had set the record straight. Recollecting the dirty UNP campaign in the run up to two national level polls in January and August 2015, Prof. Peiris said that some had gone to the extent of alleging that corruption in Sri Lanka couldn\u2019t be tackled unless Chinese investments were drastically pruned.<\/p>\n<p>MP Gunawardena accused Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake of pursuing an anti-China policy detrimental to Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n<p>The JO said the Chinese response to the government should be examined in the context of th e financial crisis caused by Central Bank bond scams. The JO commended the Chinese position underscored by Chinese Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Yi Xianliang during a media briefing at the Chinese Embassy\u00a0on Tuesday\u00a0evening.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.island.lk\/modules\/modPublication\/article_title_images\/1549186360DI-P01-04-11-(RE)-Sab--FINAL_Layout-1-10.jpg\" alt=\"article_image\" \/><br \/>\nYi Xianliang<\/p>\n<p>Prof. Peiris said that China had provided the wherewithal to wage war against the LTTE and at the conclusion of the conflict threw its weight behind Sri Lanka at various international forums. Strongly denying accusations that China was pursuing a hidden agenda here, the top envoy commented on the allegation levelled against the previous government of taking massive loans at high interest rates from China.<\/p>\n<p>The Ambassador stressed that there was absolutely no basis for claims that China had provided loans to Sri Lanka at a higher interest rate. He said he had even discussed the claims with Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake, adding that if Sri Lanka was not happy then it did not need to turn to China for more funds &#8220;We give loans to developing countries like Sri Lanka at 2 per cent interest.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Having accused China for imposing unfair interest rates on Sri Lanka, the current government had obtained loans at much higher rates from non-Chinese sources, the Chinese envoy said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Shamindra Ferdinando Courtesy The Island November 3, 2016, 10:04 pm The Joint Opposition yesterday thanked China for publicly countering lies propagated by the UNP- led government as regards loans received by the Rajapaksa administration. Top JO spokesmen former External Affairs Minister Prof. G. L. Peiris and MP Bandula Gunawardena said that China had set [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-106"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60418","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=60418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60418\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}