The U.S. government is developing this compact in partnership with the Government of Sri Lanka for the specific purpose of reducing poverty and promoting economic opportunity for Sri Lankans. MCC is an innovative foreign assistance agency of the United States Government established in 2004 that has signed compacts with 29 countries around the world.

During the visit, MD Nguyen joined U.S. Embassy Deputy Chief of Mission Robert Hilton at the Ministry of Finance to sign an agreement to provide an additional Rs 413 million ($2.6 million ) grant to finalize compact development. This amount supplements the Rs1.2 billion ($7.4 million grant) that MCC provided last July to support feasibility studies needed to develop a high-quality, evidence-based and sustainable program and is in addition to the final grant amount that MCC will provide for the compact.