Sri Lanka has received the US$695 million corresponding to the sixth and seventh tranches of its Extended Fund Facility programme with the International Monetary Fund, Deputy Finance Minister Dr. Anil Jayantha said.
The funds have been credited to the country’s foreign exchange reserves, the Deputy Minister told reporters, adding that the disbursement would provide significant support to financial stability and help maintain the rupee against the US dollar.
The receipt follows the IMF Executive Board’s combined fifth and sixth review approval on May 27, which cleared the disbursement and lifted total payouts under the four-year EFF arrangement to about US$2.4 billion. The board concluded the combined review after Sri Lanka met the programme’s structural and quantitative benchmarks, including the restoration of fully cost-reflective fuel and electricity pricing confirmed by Mission Chief Evan Papageorgiou.
The disbursement comes at a sensitive moment for the rupee, which Central Bank Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe noted has weakened by 5.4 percent year-to-date through end-May amid surging fuel import costs tied to the Middle East crisis. Treasury officials have repeatedly framed the IMF flows as the first line of defence for reserves, which stood at US$6.77 billion at end-April including the People’s Bank of China currency swap.
Source: NewsFirst.
