A delegation from the International Monetary Fund is due in Sri Lanka next month to conduct the seventh review of the country’s Extended Fund Facility, Hiru News reports.
The team will also consider the release of the eighth tranche under the programme, Hiru said in a Sinhala-language report. If the review concludes successfully, Sri Lanka would receive about USD 330 million.
What is at stake
The seventh is the penultimate review of the 48-month arrangement. IMF Mission Chief for Sri Lanka Evan Papageorgiou said in July that only the seventh and eighth reviews remain under the current EFF, with a full assessment of the programme expected on completion.
Speaking at a media briefing reported by Daily FT at the time, Papageorgiou said the review would carry both a backward-looking assessment of compliance with quantitative performance criteria and structural benchmarks, and a forward-looking one covering the macroeconomic outlook, government policy priorities and programme targets. He said the Fund’s structural agenda continued to span energy pricing, public financial management regulations, tax administration, procurement transparency, beneficial ownership verification and disaster-related spending transparency, and that the programme was placing greater weight on growth-oriented reforms alongside stabilisation.
Where the programme stands
The Executive Board completed the combined fifth and sixth reviews earlier this year, releasing about USD 695 million. Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath said on Wednesday that a seventh review was due in October and that Sri Lanka expects to meet debt repayment obligations from 2028, in remarks made while setting out a timeline to reapply for EU GSP+.
Herath’s October reference and Hiru’s “next month” do not obviously align: a September mission visit followed by an October Executive Board decision would reconcile the two, but neither report says so explicitly, and no date has been published for either.
Hiru did not name the delegation members, give arrival dates, or say which reform measures the mission will focus on. No other verified Sri Lankan newsroom had filed its own report on the visit as of Friday morning.
