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Sri Lanka's IMF bailout.

 On Monday, Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe's office said that the executive board of the International monetary fund has approved a $2.9 billion bailout which will give access to $7 billion funding as Sri Lanka recovers from its worst economic crisis in its

 received assurances to restore debt sustainability from the Country's biggest bilateral donors which are China, India and Japan. Sri Lanka will get the first $330 million tranche in the next two days. As last year Economic mismanagement coupled with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic left Sri Lanka severely short of dollars for essential imports at the beginning of last year. while this package is hardly sufficient to tide over Sri Lanka's crisis, it will help the

 country restore its credibility with international private creditors. On Wednesday Wickremesinghe said that "This sets the stage for Sri Lanka to have better fiscal discipline and improved  government This $3 billion is expected to catalyze additional support to the tune of $3.75 billion from the likes of the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and other lenders. This clears the way for Sri Lanka to rework a substantial part of 484 billion worth of public Debt This would give Sri Lanka $7 billion in overall funding.

 However, this funding by IMF will not immediately help million of Sri Lankans, who are being squeezed by soaring costs of living, higher income taxes and a 66% increase in power tariffs. This comes at a times when the president is under fire from Sri Lanka's opposition parties as well as from civil society groups and trade union who led last year Aragalaya Movement. This was the 17 IMF bailout for Sri Lanka and the third since 2009.

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