Sri Lanka Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said that the crisis-ridden nation is looking forward to discussions on debt restructuring with China.
Wickremesinghe said this after a discussion with China’s Deputy Ambassador Hu Wei in Colombo.
In January, President Gotabaya Rajapasa had urged Beijing to restructure its debt repayments as the country was going through its worst economic crisis. Rajapaksa made this request when he met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
Over the last 10 years, China has given over $5 billion loans for projects including building highways, ports and airports, but political analysts have claimed that most of the projects were white elephants with no returns to the island nation.
China accounts for 10 per cent of Sri Lanka’s total loans and it is the third biggest lender after Japan and the Asian Development Bank.
Facing crisis with no dollars to import food, fuel, medicine and cooking gas, Sri Lanka had in April suspended its debt payment of around $7 billion for 2022.
