IMF meetings to take place today

November 18, 2024

World - Business

IMF meetings to take place today

January 15, 2019

The talks between the Sri Lanka delegation and International Monetary Fund (IMF) officials have been rescheduled for today due to heavy snow in the US capital Washington. The talks were to be held on yesterday.An official from the Lankan team said, “All meetings were to be held on Monday were cancelled as it was declared a holiday for federal offices due to prevailing weather conditions and partial government shut down. The Sri Lankan delegation, headed by Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera, arrived in Washington on Sunday to begin talks with the IMF officials to put the $ 1.5 billion Extended Fund Facility (EFF) program back on track.

The Lankan delegation was to meet senior IMF officials including Managing Director IMF, Christine Lagarde, Deputy Managing Director, Mitsuhiro Furusawa, Asian Pacific Department Director, Chanyong Rhee and Team Leader Manuel Goretti and the members of the IMF Sri Lanka team.In mid November last year, IMF said it had delayed discussions on Sri Lanka’s next loan tranche due to the country’s political crisis that began after October 26.

The IMF has disbursed over USD 1 billion out of a USD1.5 billion three-year Extended Fund Facility (EFF) loan it agreed in 2016, in order to support the reform agenda.In September 2018, the IMF said in a statement its mission had made significant progress toward reaching a staff-level agreement with the government on completing the fifth review of the EFF and discussions will continue during the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank in October.