{"id":78821,"date":"2018-06-28T13:58:17","date_gmt":"2018-06-28T20:58:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=78821"},"modified":"2018-06-28T13:58:17","modified_gmt":"2018-06-28T20:58:17","slug":"ajith-nivard-cabraal-refutes-new-york-times-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/06\/28\/ajith-nivard-cabraal-refutes-new-york-times-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Ajith Nivard Cabraal refutes New York Times report"},"content":{"rendered":"

ARTHUR WAMANAN\u00a0Courtesy Ceylon Today<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n
\n

Former Governor of the Central Bank, Ajith Nivard Cabraal has refuted claims made in a recently published article in the New York Times which had stated that Sri Lanka was placed in a debt trap by China due to the loans obtained for various development projects.<\/p>\n

The New York Times (NYT) in a recently published article claimed that Sri Lanka was entrapped by China due to various loans obtained by the former during the leadership of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa. It also alleged that China had funded for the campaign of Rajapaksa for the 2015 presidential elections.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Ceylon Today, Cabraal pointed out that the main thrust of the story that was published in the NYT was to show that Sri Lanka was forced surrender some of the assets to China due to the debt trap it had been placed.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Cabraal said that Sri Lanka had been used in the article to target China, which has evolved as a threat to the United States in the global arena.<\/p>\n

I can understand why the US is saying it. I think they (US) want to show that China is going around the world and are trying to take over various countries, which the West used to do in the past by attacking them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

we don\u2019t want to show China in a great light. But Sri Lanka never got into a debt trap,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

He clarified that Sri Lanka was never in a debt trap under former president Rajapaksa, and added that the country was managing its debts and resources very well.<\/p>\n

Cabraal also claimed that the writer of the article, Maria Abi-Habib had contacted him to obtain comments and had interviewed him regarding her article.<\/p>\n

He however said that none of his views on the said topic was published. He pointed out that he was quoted on an aspect which had the least relevance to the main thrust of the article.<\/p>\n

In my interview I pointed out several facts, including that Sri Lanka had brought down its debt to GDP down to as much as 71% by the time Rajapaksa finished his term. There were improvements in the debt situation each year. It was recognized by the locals, foreign investors, and bodies such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF). We were clearly on a debt consolidation path,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He also explained that it was wrong to claim that Sri Lanka was trapped solely because of loans provided by China.<\/p>\n

Sri Lanka has borrowed from the US more than China. These loans are in the form of International Sovereign Bonds, Treasury Bonds, and Treasury bills which have had investors from the US and the West. So if at all Sri Lanka was going to get into trouble, it was not because of the Chinese debt alone, but because of all the debt,\u201d he pointed out.<\/p>\n

Speaking on the claim that China funded Rajapaksa\u2019s presidential campaign, Cabraal said that they were mere allegations and were not proven. Why focus on that when there is proof that the UNP campaigns were funded by those involved in the Treasury Bond scam?\u201d he questioned.<\/p>\n

Cabraal claimed that the total foreign debt at the time when Rajapaksa stepped down was around USD 26 billion out of which China\u2019s portion was approximately USD 4 to 5 billion.<\/p>\n

He also pointed out that it was the current government which gave the port on lease to China and not Rajapaksa. Rajapaksa never wanted to sell or lease the port to any country. If that was what China wanted, why would it bribe the former president by funding his campaign?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ARTHUR WAMANAN\u00a0Courtesy Ceylon Today Former Governor of the Central Bank, Ajith Nivard Cabraal has refuted claims made in a recently published article in the New York Times which had stated that Sri Lanka was placed in a debt trap by China due to the loans obtained for various development projects. The New York Times (NYT) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78821","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\/78821","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=78821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78821\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}