COLOMBO (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s bilateral lenders who agreed to restructure close to USD6 billion in loans have demanded “comparability of treatment” with other creditors, including China.
The Official Creditor Committee (OCC), led by Japan, France and India, have requested details of Colombo’s other debt deals, a statement seen by AFP yesterday read.
The grouping agreed in Paris on Wednesday to restructure USD5.8 billion in loans.
But on the same day, Colombo struck another deal with the Exim Bank of China to cover USD4.2 billion.
The OCC, which also included the United States, Canada and several European nations, said it had asked Colombo to provide “all information necessary for the OCC to ensure comparability of treatment”.
It also expected Colombo to strike a deal with private creditors “on terms at least as favourable” as the OCC had offered. Sri Lanka defaulted on its foreign debt in April 2022 after running out of foreign exchange, and the unprecedented economic crisis forced then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa to step down.
Sri Lanka had expected to rapidly conclude debt restructuring in line with a USD2.9-billion International Monetary Fund bailout programme, but delays in securing an agreement with China had held up the process.
While USD4.2 billion of Chinese bilateral credit had been treated under debt restructuring on Wednesday, there was no word on a USD2.18-billion loan from the China Development Bank (CDB) considered a private commercial loan.
