Govt. retains two foreign firms to restructure ISBs

By Rathindra Kuruwita

The Cabinet of Ministers had approved a proposal to seek the services of two international companies to identify who held the country’s International Sovereign Bonds (ISB) and to apprise them of the government’s restructuring plans, Cabinet Spokesman, Minister Bandula Gunawardane told the media on Tuesday.

Gunawardena said that Sri Lanka was facing the worse economic crisis, since Independence, and it was unable to pay its foreign debt.

“We need to work our way through this. We need to work with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and we need to restructure our debt. Sri Lanka has suspended the repayment of two types of loans, i.e., bilateral loans and ISBs,” he said.

Minister Gunawardane said that ISBs were the biggest portion of Sri Lanka’s foreign debt. Sri Lanka had issued ISBs worth about 18 billion US dollars, from 2007 to 2019, he said.

“A lot of investors have bought them. There are many investors from the US, the UK, France, Germany, etc.

We have to identify them, and this is a complex process,” he said.

Minister Gunawardane said President Ranil Wickremesinghe, as the Minister of Finance, had presented a Cabinet Paper on Monday and proposed that Sri Lanka secure the services of a company to identify those who held the country’s International Sovereign Bonds (ISB) and to inform them of the government’s restructuring plans.

“The Cabinet approved the proposal. This problem needed the inputs of foreign experts because this is an international problem,” he said.

According to Fitch Ratings, the debt repayments due in the period 2021 to 2026 are over 6 billion US dollars in 2021, 6.5 billion US dollars in 2022, 5 billion US dollars in 2023, 4.8 billion US dollars in 2024, 5 billion US dollars in 2025 and 3.8 billion US dollars in 2026. These include ISBs, Sri Lanka Development Bonds and bilateral loans.