Hon. (Prof.) Anil Jayantha - Minister of Labour and Deputy Minister of Economic Development
Hon. (Prof.) Anil Jayantha said the Government had not drafted the debt restructuring agreement and had its own criticisms of it, but chose to proceed rather than delay and risk further economic damage. He stated that the increase in the debt ceiling was due to the mechanics of exchanging existing International Sovereign Bonds for new instruments up to a notional Rs. 3,000 billion, and did not constitute new net borrowing.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Hon. Deputy Speaker, briefly: there is misunderstanding. We did not craft this agreement; we too had criticisms. But the practical question at the final stage was: do we discard and lose another year with additional economic damage, or proceed to stabilize and rebuild? We chose the practical path, factoring costs already incurred. The apparent increase in the debt ceiling relates to issuance mechanics—exchanging old ISBs (held by existing holders) with new instruments up to Rs. 3,000 billion notional; it is not new net borrowing.
Provenance
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- Hansard, Friday, 6 December 2024 ·No. 1734424725051921 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
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Cite as: Hon. (Prof.) Anil Jayantha - Minister of Labour and Deputy Minister of Economic Development. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 6 December 2024. No. 1734424725051921. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/19587