The government will bring in an anti-corruption bill to Parliament shortly, as agreed with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) when entering a staff-level agreement last September, Cabinet Spokesperson Minister Bandula Gunawardana said.
The Central Bank last Friday projected a faster decline in the rate of inflation in the coming months, as businesses and households will benefit from the relative strength in the rupee in recent times, which gets translated into lower imported goods prices.
Taking everyone by surprise, the Monetary Board of the Central Bank yesterday raised the policy interest rates by 100 basis points, though many predicted the monetary authority to either maintain the status quo or signal a dovish tilt by cutting rates.
The analysts at First Capital Research (FCR) assigned equal weightage between a rate cut and an unchanged policy stance at the upcoming monetary policy announcement tomorrow afternoon but they doubled down on their bets on a dovish tilt by the members of the rate setting committee at the next review, with a sizable rate cut in the second quarter.
Sri Lankan rupee appreciated yesterday on improved sentiments over the current and future foreign exchange conditions in the domestic market after the announcement that International Finance Corporation (IFC) is willing to provide US$ 400 million worth of swap facility for three commercial banks to support essential imports.
To support Sri Lanka amid an ongoing economic crisis, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the investment arm of the World Bank, is providing a cross-currency swap facility to three of Sri Lanka’s leading national banks that deal with over 30 percent of Sri Lanka’s remittances and exports.
The government has settled the majority of the arrears to the tune of Rs.191 billion to contractors and suppliers, after assuming power on August 31, last year, despite an 8 percent contraction in the economy during the year, Finance State Minister Ranjith Siyambalapitiya said.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe yesterday told parliament that his top priority is building a strong economy and not politics, though the Opposition political parties directly accused him of trying to postpone an election that has already been announced.
Contradicting with the earlier plans to handover the East Container Terminal (ECT) to Japan, Ports, Shipping and Aviation Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva hinted that the government plans to retain the control of the ECT of the Port of Colombo while inviting the private sector to invest in the proposed Colombo North Port development project.
The disposal of the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) presents the best option for Sri Lanka to avert a possible domestic debt restructuring (DDR) scenario, while it could become a catalyst to develop a vibrant capital market to exploit the current market opportunities, where the investors are rallying back to emerging and frontier markets.
With the dawn of the new year, Sri Lanka made significant progress in obtaining financing assurances from its creditors to help unlock the International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout package; however, according to the multilateral funding agency, what the island nation has managed to bag so far is not enough.
Sri Lanka appears to be still having roughly US$ 3.2 billion worth foreign currency obligations to be settled this year even after announcing a debt standstill on selective debt last year until creditors agree to restructure them.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe made his second throne speech in Parliament yesterday to reinforce his blueprint to put the economic back on track and made clear that his government has no role in private businesses except for creating a conducive environment for the private sector to drive the economy.
The nations that are in debt with the People’s Republic of China will have the opportunity to negotiate firsthand the debt restructuring agenda, as the world’s second largest economy has confirmed its attendance at the first-ever creditor-debtor roundtable organised by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The Central Bank has kicked off an asset quality review of the country’s banking sector to identify possible stresses in different pockets of banks’ balance sheets as they provided enormously on possible bad loans and other financial asset losses in 2022 with the final stretch of moratoria expiring early this year.
As Sri Lanka celebrates its 75th year of independence from British rule today, while grappling with the worst economic crisis faced in history, President Ranil Wickremesinghe expresses confidence in the country rising up from the current turmoil and coming back stronger.
The Paris Club of creditor nations is ready to provide financing assurances to Sri Lanka, a key step needed to unlock a US$2.9 billion bailout by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Reuters reported yesterday quoting two unnamed sources.