- Cabinet approves Domestic Debt Restructuring Programme: President’s Office says it will be submitted at the next Parliament session: CB Governor’s presentation indicates that only T-Bills held by the Central Bank are to be re-structured: T-Bonds maturing between 2024 and 2032 to be renewed at 9% without reduction: however, interest given to EPF Members for 2023 to be limited to 9%, even while interest rates were well over 30%: T-Bills & Bonds held by Banks not to be re-structured: analysts say the plan is unlikely to be acceptable to Sri Lanka’s external creditors who are likely to be asked to suffer a “hair-cut” of 60% of their loan balances.
- Cabinet approves new Gambling Regulatory Authority to be in charge of the industry, revenue collection, and overall course of gambling development in the country: draft bill submitted by President Ranil Wickremesinghe.
- CoPF Chairman Harsha Silva says the CoPF has summoned key agencies linked to debt re-structuring, over the Govt’s debt restructuring plan “to resolve outstanding issues”.
- World Bank approves USD 700 mn in budgetary and welfare support for Sri Lanka: USD 500 mn for budgetary support while the remaining USD 200 mn will be for welfare support: granting of the loan indicates that the Govt is unable to make ends meet, even when it does not have to service its loans.
- Merchandise exports fall 5.6% in May 2023 from a year earlier to USD 989.7 mn: decrease due to a drop in apparel, textile and coconut exports: in the first 5 months in 2023, exports have fallen 8.3% from a year earlier: demand from Western nations dwindling.
- Banks overload their Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs) to avoid customer panic due to various comments made on Domestic Debt Re-structuring: senior bankers say banks are worried about some of the comments made by the authorities.
- Finance Ministry says 383,232 appeals & 5,045 objections have been received so far over the “Aswesuma” social security scheme.
- SriLankan Airlines flight UL 454 which left for Narita, Japan from the Bandaranaike International Airport returns to Colombo after 2 hours due to a “technical fault”.
- Shipping Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva expresses SL’s strong commitment to become a prominent hub for seafarer training and employment, with a target of increasing the number of trained seafarers to over 50,000 in the coming years.
- SL Tourism Development Authority says necessary funds have been cleared for the repairs and renovations of national tourist holiday resorts: expects “significant development” to take place in the next 6 months to attract domestic and foreign tourists.
