General
Sri Lanka to spin off CPC refinery to attract capital
ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka is discussing the implementation of legislation and improving governance with a visiting International Monetary Fund review mission, State Minister of Finance Shehan Semasinghe said.
Sri Lanka has met key quantity targets as of December 2023, for the second IMF review but also has a series of laws to pass and actions stemming from a governance diagnostic report.
“There has been a lot of discussion on improving governance and zero-tolerance of corruption,” Minister Semasinghe said.
A Public Finance Management and banking legislation have also been discussed, he said.
As par of the review that is submitted to the board, a new agreement revising the targets and benchmarks are also fashioned in the form of a staff level agreement.
Sri Lanka has collected reserves as required,
The new agreement may come at the mission or after further discussions or some actions are completed.
Since 2024 is an election year the IMF was keen that there was no deviation from the principles of the program and “no hasty decisions” are taken, Minister Semasinghe said.
For the second review to pass the IMF has signalled that an in-principle debt restructuring deal has to be made with commercial creditors.
Progress is being made with commercial creditors including China Development Bank, Minister Semasinghe.
Respective advisors to the bond holders and Sri Lanka government ere also engaging with each other, he said.
