COLOMBO:  , Sri Lanka’s president will travel to the island’s largest bilateral lender China next week ahead of his first national budget, the information minister said on Tuesday ( Jan 7 ).
The attend comes one month before President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s first funds, which is expected to describe his ideas to help the nation recover from its most agonizing economic collapse in 2022.
Dissanayake will initiate a three-day browse on Jan 14, said Nalinda Jayatissa.
Since being elected in September, he will make his next overseas trip, visiting local powerhouse India past month.
When Colombo ran out of foreign exchange to pay for essential imports like food, gas, and drugs, the beach defaulted on its US$ 14 billion bill in 2022 when the island incurred a debt of more than half the size of Sri Lanka’s US$ 14 billion loan from another governments.
A US$ 2.9 billion, four-year IMF bailout mortgage program that his predecessor negotiated in 2023 has already been supported by communist Dissanayake, who also intends to keep higher taxes paid to support state revenue.
The Sri Lankan government completed a restructuring of both diplomatic loans and foreign sovereign bonds final month, putting an end to its bankrupt status, after much delaying.
Sri Lanka was likely to ask China for more fiscal aid, according to official publications.
The two nations are also expected to sign some contracts, including closer cooperation between position media organisations.
Vijitha Herath, the foreign secretary, and Bimal Rathnayake, the minister of transportation, did accompany Dissanayake.