IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva to visit Sri Lanka next month

The Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Kristalina Georgieva is scheduled to visit Sri Lanka next month, according to a top IMF official. 

“She’ll be here both to look at the success of the program and to express the solidarity we have with you,” Director of the IMF’s Asia and Pacific Department Krishna Srinivasan told President Anura Kumara Dissanayake during a discussion on Wednesday (28).

An IMF team led by Srinivasan and also including Deputy Director for Asia and the Pacific Sanjaya Panth, Mission Chief Evan Papageorgiou, and Resident Representative Martha Woldemichael, arrived in Sri Lanka to assess the damage caused by Cyclone Ditwah and held talks with the President at the Presidential Secretariat.

Speaking during the meeting with the President, IMF’s Asia and Pacific Director Krishna Srinivasan said: 

“I’ve been to Sri Lanka four times. This is my fourth visit. And for the first time, I went to parts of Sri Lanka outside Colombo for two days.

And there are three things I’d like to highlight from my trip outside Colombo. This is a very beautiful country and huge potential in terms of what it can achieve. That’s number one.

Number two, I saw for first hand the impact of natural disaster. In many parts, I saw flooding. I saw roads which need to be repaired.

So, our sympathies are with you and with the people of Sri Lanka for the lives lost and for the impact of the disaster. And the third thing, which also talking to people, there’s huge appreciation for what the government has done for the people and notably in the area of governance reform. 

I think these are three things which I want to reflect to you because usually we come to Colombo, we come for meetings. For the first time, I went outside and learned quite a bit. So, our heartfelt condolences for the disaster. The program was doing very well.

And as you mentioned, this was an unexpected shock. I mean, and this came at a very wrong time. The team is here. They’ve been talking to all your authorities, to all your colleagues. And I can say that, you know, we are with you. Our full support is with you.

Our Managing Director will be coming to Colombo next month. And she’ll be here both to look at the success of the program and to express the solidarity we have with you. 

And, you know, this is, for Sanjay and me, this is a slightly different mission.

We have, this is a meeting of all our representatives in the region. And we had scheduled this meeting many months ago. And when the disaster happened, people said, maybe you should cancel.

But I said, no, we want to express our solidarity with the people of Sri Lanka. So we are here. A big delegation of the IMF is there to talk about regional developments.”