ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka has had “extremely high” level of participation in an offer to swap new securities for defaulted sovereign bonds which is expected to result in 98 percent of bonds being exchanged, the Finance Ministry said.
“We are very pleased to see this vote of confidence from our international and local bondholders,” President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said in the statement.
“The past few years have been challenging for the Sri Lankan population, but of our collective efforts are now paying off.
“The implementation of this debt exchange, which is the result of two years of intense negotiations, will deliver substantial relief to Sri Lanka.”
Sri Lanka offered to exchange 12.5 billion US dollars of bonds for new securities with a hair cut of 27 percent.
“Sri Lanka successfully concluded its international bond restructuring, bringing closure to one of the most complex and challenging sovereign debt restructuring exercises in recent history,” Treasury Secretary Mahinda Siriwardana said in an x.com message.
“The debt restructuring process provides Sri Lanka with substantial debt relief which we must use diligently to rebuild our fiscal and external buffers and set the foundation for economic recovery and growth.”
Sri Lanka successfully concluded its international bond restructuring, bringing closure to one of the most complex and challenging sovereign debt restructuring exercises in recent history…https://t.co/qJ0y2rJ1MU pic.twitter.com/vE4oKvUlw9
— Mahinda Siriwardana (@mahindasiri6) December 13, 2024
Sri Lanka defaulted on its external debt in 2022 after two years of extreme macro-economic policy involving ‘Barber Boom’ style tax cuts and money printing.
By that time Sri Lanka was buried in over 13 billion dollars of sovereign bonds and syndicated loans taken during back-to-back currency crises from inflation targeting without a floating rate and also rate cuts to boost growth or target potential output.
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Final results would be published on December 16 with the exchange due to take place on December 20. (Colombo/Dec13/2024)
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