(): Sri Lanka continues to engage all debt restructuring negotiations in good faith, within principles of equitable treatment among creditors with maximum transparency, the government has said as it faced criticism from the Opposition for maintaining secrecy over the debt restructuring process.
The government on Tuesday announced that it failed to reach an agreement with its international bondholders for restructuring around USD 12 billion in debt. The main opposition’s economy spokesman Harsha de Silva in a statement said they were disappointed with the lack of transparency in the debt restructuring process.
“….It is obvious that that government has failed to strike a deal favourable to the people of Sri Lanka”, de Silva of Samagi Jana Balawegaya party added. “It is clear that the participating bondholders do not want to move away from the original structure they proposed based on the performance of the Sri Lanka economy to be measured on their much higher alternative baseline as opposed to that of the IMF”. The government statement said it had considered two separate proposals by the bondholders and the government proposal for a 28 per cent haircut had been rejected by the bondholders. Responding to criticism, Shehan Semasinghe, the state minister of finance, said that the government was keen to engage all debt restructuring negotiations in good faith within the principles of equitable treatment with maximum transparency.
