SL President departs for first-ever BRI meeting in China

Ranil Wickremesinghe, the president of Sri Lanka, departed for China on Sunday night after China’s statement of the debt treatment deal for roughly $4.2 billion in arrears.

Attending the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, which is set to take place on October 17 and 18, is the major goal of the trip. President Wickremesinghe will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping as well as other political and commercial figures during his first trip to Beijing since taking office as head of state.

Sri Lanka’s Finance Ministry said on Thursday that the country and the Exim Bank of China had reached an agreement on fundamental terms for the reorganization of $4.2 billion in loans.Prior to Japan and India, China is Sri Lanka’s biggest bilateral creditor with a loan of almost $7 billion.

The debt restructuring agreement will assist in avoiding the IMF’s first assessment, which will take place next week, and in ensuring the release of a second IMF tranche worth around $334 million. In September 2022, Sri Lanka agreed to a $2.9 billion rescue plan with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a last-ditch effort to recover from its worst economic crisis ever. At the same time, debt negotiations with important bilateral creditors, such as Japan, India, and Paris Club creditors, were also initiated.

China, meanwhile, avoided sitting down at the table with other creditors, severely impeding the process.

President Wickremesinghe has recently praised China while criticizing the US, the West, and other countries.

He reaffirmed the need of a thorough conversation between the West and China, the United States and China, and the European Union and China as part of a strong international strategy to face the global issues predicted in 2024 when attending a Global Summit in Berlin last month.

He also criticized how developing nations like Sri Lanka were being threatened by big power rivalries and geopolitics for having broad access to trade, investment, money, and other things.

“China’s Belt and Road Initiative has been labelled as a cohesive program, and the participating countries like Sri Lanka have been looked upon with suspicion,” Wickremesinghe said in his opening remarks at the Berlin Global Dialogue. Economic prospects in the Global South will be further harmed by this, and polarization will grow more pronounced.