Minister of Finance and Mass Media Mangala Samaraweera will leave for Washington on Friday to get the IMF External Fund Facility (EFF) back on track. He will be meeting Managing Director of International Monetary Fund (IMF) Christine Lagarde, Mitsuhiro Furusawa, Deputy Managing Director, Chanyong Rhee, Director, Asia Pacific Department, Manuel Goretti, Team Leader and other members of the IMF Sri Lanka Team.
Minister Samaraweera is expected to signal the Government’s intention to continue with IMF reform program. A key objective will be to negotiate the trajectory of continued fiscal consolidation while accommodating policies to support growth and strengthen the social safety net.
The Finance Minister’s delegation to IMF will include the Governor of the Central Bank, Secretary to the Treasury and other key officials of the Central Bank and the Treasury.
In mid November last year, IMF said it had delayed discussions on Sri Lanka’s next loan tranche due to the country’s political crisis that began after October 26.
The IMF has disbursed over US dollar 1 billion out of a US dollar 1.5 billion three-year Extended Fund Facility (EFF) loan it agreed in 2016, in order to support the reform agenda. In September 2018, the IMF said in a statement its mission had made significant progress toward reaching a staff-level agreement with the government on completing the fifth review of the EFF and discussions will continue during the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank in October.
After resolving the constitutional crisis on December 16, 2018, State Finance Minister Eran Wickramaratne told the media that the government would soon re-negotiate with the IMF to put resume the program that was disrupted by the political turmoil.
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