COLOMBO (Reuters) – The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Wednesday said that it supported Sri Lanka’s plans to engage in “collaborative dialogue” with creditors, a day after the country unilaterally suspended external debt payments amid a severe economic crisis.
“We assessed Sri Lanka’s debt to be unsustainable and that the country’s fiscal efforts and macroeconomic policy adjustments alone could not restore debt sustainability,” Masahiro Nozaki, IMF’s mission chief for Sri Lanka, told Reuters in a statement.
“Therefore, we welcome the Sri Lankan authorities plan to engage in a collaborative dialogue with their creditors,” Nozaki said, adding that the IMF was assessing the specific implications of Sri Lanka’s recent announcement.
(Reporting by Uditha Jayasinghe, Writing by Devjyot Ghoshal)
