Video Transcript
Clifford Chi-wai Lau
CFA, Portfolio Manager
Emerging Markets Debt Team
I’m here in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and behind me is the capitol city, Colombo, where the construction of it to become a special economic zone has come to a standstill after the government defaulted in year 2022.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) offers the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) program to support countries experiencing serious medium-term balance of payments problems due to structural weaknesses that require time to address.
The economic situation in Sri Lanka appears to have stabilized a lot, and the government is working very hard to deliver reforms in order to meet the IMF targets under the EFF program.
The key risk to watch for next year is the completion of the external debt restructuring and also the presidential election scheduled in September 2024 as well.
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