Sri Lanka to discuss shape of deal with IMF during October meetings in Washington By Reuters

By Uditha Jayasinghe

COLOMBO (Reuters) – Sri Lanka will hold detailed talks with the IMF on a $2.9 billion bailout program on the sidelines of the creditors’ annual meetings in Washington later this month, a spokesman said on Tuesday. of the country’s cabinet.

The delegation to the Washington meetings will be led by the country’s central bank governor, treasury secretary and financial advisers to the new president Anura Kumara Dissanayake, minister Vijitha Herath told reporters at a news conference.

Dissanayake said Sri Lanka will immediately engage with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the third review of its bailout program, the approval of which will lead to the payment of a fourth tranche of about $337 million.

An IMF team will be on a three-day visit to Colombo from Wednesday to meet Dissanayake and his team to discuss the latest economic developments and reforms under Sri Lanka’s IMF-backed economic programme, said a spokesperson of the creditor.

“We believe that an evaluation of the IMF program needs to be done, but it will not be done with a delegation visit this week,” Herath said, adding that the IMF delegation made a “courtesy call” this week.

The 2024 annual meetings of the IMF and the World Bank are scheduled to take place on October 21-26.

Millions of Sri Lankans voted for leftist leader Dissanayake in the debt-ridden island nation’s presidential election in September – the first since its economy collapsed in 2022 – trusting his commitment to fight corruption and vowing to uphold a fragile economic recovery.

Investors fear that Dissanayake’s willingness to revise the terms of the IMF bailout could delay future payments. But fears were somewhat assuaged by the new president who said last week that the program would move forward under his administration.