Sri Lanka said Monday it had secured a $500 million loan from South Korea, a month after a similar loan from China as the island faced a foreign exchange shortage amid a debt crisis. The government said South Korea agreed to provide the loan at a concessional interest rate of 0.15 to 0.20 percent, repayable over 40 years with a 10-year grace period. “The framework arrangement was signed today,” the finance ministry said in a statement. Last month Colombo raised another $500 million loan from Beijing in a desperate bid to shore up its dwindling foreign reserves and ease pressure on the local currency. The People’s Bank of China also granted a $1.5 billion currency swap to finance imports from China in February as the rupee hit a record low of 202.73 to the dollar. At the end of April Sri Lanka said its economy shrank 3.6 percent last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, making it the worst downturn since independence from Britain in 1948. The unprecedented recession compared with 2.3 percent GDP growth in 2019, according to the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.