Daily Times

The IMF said Friday a team will travel to Sri Lanka next week to resume aid talks that were interrupted amid the unrest that led to the resignation of the nation’s president. The island nation defaulted on its $51b foreign debt in April and country’s central bank warned Thursday that the economy could suffer a record contraction of more than 8pc this year with inflation peaking at 65pc. Staff from the Washington-based crisis lender plan to visit Colombo during August 24-31 “to continue discussions with the Sri Lankan authorities on economic and financial reforms and policies,” the IMF said in a statement. “The objective is to make progress towards reaching a staff-level agreement” on a funding package “in the near term,” the IMF said. However, the country’s public debt is “unsustainable,” which means any IMF loan program “would require adequate assurances by Sri Lanka’s creditors that debt sustainability will be restored.” Formal discussions on a new package for the cash-strapped nation began in June but were thrown off course by the political upheaval.