Fresh loan from China to restructure debt – Cabraal

COLOMBO (News 1st); Sri Lanka’s Central Bank Governor said there is a possibility of obtaining a new loan from China for the country’s debt restructuring purposes.“We have a very good understanding with China, about our debt and key payments and investments,” Ajith Nivard Cabraal told reporters on Wednesday (12) morning.He told that “assistance that has been sought has been connected to the key payments that we are having.

but it is only with regard to China’s transactions.”Cabraal said that Sri Lanka has an understanding with China that they would assist Sri Lanka in making the repayments.“So there is a possibility that we would have a new loan coming from China, in order to cushion the effect of our debt repayments to China itself,” he elaborated.However, the Governor said that this is something Sri Lanka wants to explore, and it would be used for the future as well.“It is to cushion the debt repayment to China that we would try to negotiate a new loan for that purpose, as well as for any other purposes.

China is one country we import heavily from. So we have a good understanding as far as imports are concerned,” he added.“India is another country that we get a lot of imports from.

We are also negotiating with India to have a dollar facility in order to import goods from India. So it’s an arrangement that would encourage us as well as help us to make repayments to those countries and at the same time promote more trade between the two countries as well,” said the Governor.