By Jorgelina do Rosario, Karin Strohecker and Uditha
Jayasinghe
LONDON/COLOMBO, March 21 (Reuters) - Sri Lanka is ready
to engage in debt restructuring talks with bilateral and private
creditors to recover debt sustainability as "soon as possible,"
said the country's state finance minister Shehan Semasinghe.
Sri Lanka has secured this week a $2.9 billion programme
from the International Monetary Fund in a bid to tackle its
suffocating debt burden and its worst economic crisis in more
than seven decades that has disrupted imports of essentials from
fuel to medicine and caused political turmoil.
"The central bank will start engaging officially," the
minister told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday, after the IMF
gave its final approval to the bailout allowing much-needed
disbursements and unlocking additional financing from
multilateral lenders.
"From today onwards, we will move forward to engage more
with our creditors and to finalise the restructuring process."
(Reporting by Jorgelina do Rosario, Karin Strohecker and Uditha
Jayasinghe, editing by Chizu Nomiyama)