As a traditional friendly neighbour of Sri Lanka and a major shareholder of the International Monetary Fund, China has always been encouraging the IMF and other international financial institutions to continue to play a positive role in supporting Sri Lanka’s response to current difficulties and efforts to ease debt burden and realize sustainable development. As to the bilateral financial cooperation, shortly after the Sri Lankan government announced to suspend international debt payments in April 2022, Chinese financial institutions reached out to the Sri Lankan side and expressed their readiness to find a proper way to handle the matured debts related to China and help Sri Lanka to overcome the current difficulties. We hope Sri Lanka will work actively with China in a similar spirit and work out a feasible solution expeditiously.
Meanwhile, on August 30, 2022, Director-General of the Department of Asian Affairs of the Foreign Ministry Liu Jinsong met with the Ambassador of Sri Lanka to China Dr Palitha Kohona. The two sides had a cordial and friendly exchange of views on China-Sri Lanka relations and international and regional issues of common concern.
“What lies behind Sri Lanka’s current economic and financial crisis are not only structural problems of its economy and unexpected factors such as the pandemic but also adverse spillover effects brought by the US Federal Reserve’s monetary policy,” said Liu.
