Sri Lanka to briefly suspend foreign financial obligation payments
COLOMBO: Crisis-stricken Sri Lanka defaulted on its $51 billion external financial obligation on Tuesday, calling the relocation a “last resort” after running out of foreign exchange to import frantically required products.
The island nation is coming to grips with its worst financial downturn because independence, with routine blackouts and severe shortages of food and fuel.
Sri Lanka’s finance ministry said in a statement that lenders, including foreign governments, were complimentary to capitalise any interest payments due to them from Tuesday or go with repayment in Sri Lankan rupees.
“The government is taking the emergency situation step just as a last resort in order to prevent additional deterioration of the republic’s financial position,” the declaration stated.
It added that the immediate debt default was to guarantee “reasonable and fair treatment of all creditors” ahead of an International Monetary Fund helped healing programme for the South Asian country.
The crisis has actually triggered prevalent anguish for Sri Lanka’s 22 million individuals and led to weeks of anti-government demonstrations.
International score firms had reduced Sri Lanka in 2015, effectively obstructing the nation from accessing foreign capital markets to raise much-needed loans to finance imports.
Sri Lanka had looked for financial obligation relief from India and China, but both countries instead used more credit lines to purchase products from them.
Released at Tue, 12 Apr 2022 06:53:21 +0000
