President, Maithripala Sirisena has called a special Cabinet meeting at 3:00 p.m. today (4 March) to discuss the current economic situation in the country.
Sources said the meeting will, among other topics, mainly focus on the amount of loans obtained by the previous regime, and discuss ways and means of repaying such loans, both in the short and the long-term.
This was disclosed to the media on Wednesday by Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Harsha de Silva, during a news conference to announce Cabinet decisions.
In order to discuss about current economic situation in the country, we decided to convene an emergency Cabinet meeting. It is needless to say that the economic situation here is in peril, he said.
That is because this government inherited an empty Treasury. The Minister of Finance had announced that the amount of loans to be paid off was only discovered recently. However, we will be able to explain the realistic situation shortly. Overall, we will have to pay up loans to the tune of billions of dollars,” Dr. de Silva said.
