Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake says that the government will finalise discussions with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), on the loan it is seeking, after the Prime Minister returns from his visit to China and that they intend to conclude talks on Monday. 

“To be very frank, the discussion are going on down in Sri Lanka,” he said, speaking to Bloomberg’s Haidi Lun from the Credit Suisse Asian Investment Conference in Hong Kong. 

“When I get back and the Prime Minister comes back from China we will be having the final discussions and by Monday we will be able to have a final go.”

Karunanayake said that it is the government’s intention to have the discussions concluded on Monday. “Because differences are small but it is deep-rooted so it needs to be having its corrected approach.” 

“It’s the fact that with the IMF blessings and their overriding confidence given the approval, that’ll certainly showcase Sri Lanka in a better position,” he said

Responding to a question, the minister said that after the new government took over on the 8th of January 2015, fiscal consolidation has taken place in Sri Lanka and financial discipline has come in.

“A sense of all the corruption is in the past so we are looking at the future being invested in Sri Lanka.” 

“And in the meanwhile you have the dead past coming in. Our problem is not the carry forward, it’s a brought forward and that is where the past regime’s debt that is brought in is one of the concerns that was there and the downgrading that took place from Fitch was simply on that,” he said.

“So it has its own rectification process and I am sure that will be done before too long,” he added.