SL to select debt restructuring advisors soon

Sri Lanka would choose advisors to assit it in debt restructuring within the next 20 days, Finance Minister Ali Sabry told local media on Saturday from Washington.

The Minister said that restructuring the country’s unsustainable external debt would help obtain financial assistance from the IMF.

Minister Sabry said that discussions he had started with IMF officials in Washington would end the following day.

However, there would be more discussions before the IMF assistance was granted, he said.

Meanwhile, the IMF’s Sri Lanka Mission Chief Masahiro Nozaki on Saturday welcomed Sri Lanka’s planned negotiations with creditors.

The IMF team had welcomed Sri Lanka’s plan to engage in a collaborative dialogue with their creditors, he said.

Sri Lanka was looking for investors that can bring in more than two billion U.S. dollars into the central bank, Minister Sabry said.

Minister Sabry said that the next few months will be difficult for Sri Lankans.

There is a need to attract investments in US dollars into Sri Lanka’s central bank,” he said.

The minister said that the government is talking with several countries to get funds as soon as possible.

“If that effort is successful and if money comes to the Central Bank we think, it will help stabilise the rupee,” he said. (RK)