Sri Lanka got loaned 900 USD million from India. Ajith Nivard Cabraal, the governor of the Central Bank quoted, ” the island nation is negotiating a USD one billion loan from India to import goods from the country” on Wednesday.
The mission behind the circumstance is to develop the depleted foreign reserves and for food imports, to reduce the scarcity of mandatory commodities in the island nation. India support Sri Lanka to help the revamp for the crises the nation is affected from.
Recently, met with Gopal Baglay, Sri Lanka, The Indian High Commissioner, Cabraal said, “India’s strong support to Sri Lanka in the wake of RBI extending over USD 900 million facilities over the last week” on Thursday.
Furthermore, his tweet added that “These comprise deferment of Asian Clearing Union settlement of over USD 509 million and currency swap of USD 400 million.” Billion-dollar loan negotiations with India had reached their advanced stage said the Cabraal on Wednesday.
In response to the gestures, analysts further commented that the Indian assistance could have contributed to Sri Lanka’s doubling of reserves announced at the end of December.
After which, the central bank quoted that the reserve position had doubled to USD 3 billion from being down to USD 1.5 billion by December or sufficient for just a month’s imports. And, Cabraal stated that the forthcoming Indian loan would be for food imports.
India Support Sri Lanka: Look What the Nation Demands!
Currently, there are several critical issues Sri Lanka is facing. From which, one of the crucial troublesome for the nation is the shortage of dollars to function the imports for major accommodations.
Moreover, other crises which include power cuts are at a height, as the power unit of the nation lags in retrieving fuel to run turbines. Because of the huge amount of unpaid bills, the state has a fuel corporation that has denied redeeming fuel for the nation.
The concern was held through a virtual conference meeting, which was joined by the external affairs minister, Mr. S Jaishankar, and Sri Lankan finance minister Basil Rajapaksa. Last month, The Sri Lankan minister visited New Delhi to have an exhaustive discussion about the scenario.
According to the statement, India “has always stood with Sri Lanka, and will continue to support Sri Lanka in all possible ways for overcoming the economic and other challenges posed by Covid-19 pandemic”.
Furthermore, it stated that “As close friends and maritime neighbors, both India and Sri Lanka stand to gain from closer economic inter-linkages.” The external affairs ministry quoted that at their virtual meeting, both Jaishankar and Rajapaksa “reviewed the progress in extending Indian credit facility of $1 billion for importing food, essential items and medicine and $500 million for importing fuel from India”.
India will be a “steadfast and reliable partner of Sri Lanka”, Mr. Jaishankar tweeted. Knowingly, Sri Lanka has been going through several debts and crises, which have unfortunately affected the tourism sector of the nation. Covid-19 has further become an overburden to this uncertain situation of Sri Lanka.