Sri Lankan Parliament votes to support IMF recovery program
Associated PressCOLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka’s Parliament voted Friday to support the implementation of a four-year International Monetary Fund program aimed at solving the country’s economic crisis and reducing its debt burden. The approval strengthens Wickremesinghe’s hands as he holds tough debt restructuring negotiations with Sri Lanka’s external creditors and privatizes state-run enterprises under the program, approved by the IMF last month, in which nearly $3 billion will be disbursed in stages. Sri Lanka announced last year that it was suspending repayment of its foreign loans because of a severe foreign currency crisis resulting from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, excessive borrowing by the government, and efforts by the central bank to stabilize the Sri Lankan rupee by using scarce foreign reserves. Sri Lanka’s economic crisis, the worst in its history, caused severe shortages of food, medicine, fuel, cooking gas and electricity last year.