Colombo, Jun 24 (PTI) President Ranil Wickremesinghe will address the nation on Wednesday night during which he is likely to brief Sri Lankans on the cash-strapped country's economic challenges and provide an update on the foreign debt restructuring efforts.
President Wickremesinghe, who also holds the portfolio as the finance minister, will address the nation at 8.00 p.m. on Wednesday (June 26), the Government Information Department announced on Monday.
It is understood that Wickremesinghe, 75, who is expected to contest the presidential election in the coming months, will 'declare an end to bankruptcy' following an agreement reached with bilateral creditors and private bondholders on external debt restructuring.
The government is to enter an MoU with the official creditor committee and the Paris Club of Nations and an agreement with the Exim Bank of China and the private bondholders group tomorrow.
Public posters have appeared on the city walls captioned “good news” which appears to be part of the political campaign on the success of the debt restructuring effort which took so long to achieve.
Sri Lanka in mid-April of 2022 declared its first ever sovereign default since gaining independence from Britain in 1948.
The International Monetary Fund had made external debt restructuring conditional to the USD 2.9 billion bailout – the third tranche of which came to be released last week.
Wickremesinghe supervised the IMF programme while setting in motion hard economic reforms prescribed by the world lender.
On Sunday, he made his first public statement on the presidential election, which is likely to take place in the last quarter of this year.
Addressing a group of youth, he said that the election could take place either in September or October.
Wickremesinghe is yet to announce his candidacy while two other main opposition leaders have already declared themselves to be in the fray.
In July 2022, Wickremesinghe was elected through parliament to become stop-gap president for the balance term of Gotabaya Rajapaksa who resigned following public protests over his inability to handle the economic crisis.