Excerpt from an article on Sunday Times
Support from lending agencies
By Dhananath Fernando, COO, Advocata Institute
The Sri Lankan Government must proactively negotiate on a specific timeline with lending agencies such as IMF, World Bank and ADB to reschedule our existing facilities and for a new finance package to mitigate the indicated economic downturn. It is essential to open a dialogue with China, US, India and EU for bilateral lending given the negative outlook to raise debt from the market. Near zero rate in US interest rates in the US provides a good opportunity to restructure our foreign debt.
During the curfew period, the government should abolish price controls immediately which has created shortages of food items in the market where the most economically marginalised segment in the community is the most impacted. Import controls have to be abolished to avoid sending the wrong signals to the market and the government should work closely with the private sector to rapidly expand the testing capacity in the battle against COVID-19.
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