The Paris Club has said that it is ready to start the debt treatment process of Sri Lanka following the conclusion of the Staff-Level Agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last week.

The Paris Club in a statement also reiterated its willingness to coordinate with non-Paris Club official bilateral creditors to provide the necessary financing assurances in a timely manner and ensure fair burden sharing, as already proposed to the largest other official bilateral creditors.

“The Paris Club remains at the disposal of Sri Lanka authorities and non-Paris official bilateral creditors to further discuss the next steps of the debt treatment process,” it said.

The statement said Paris Club members welcome the SLA between the Sri Lankan Government and the IMF for a 48-month arrangement under the Extended Fund Facility worth $ 2.9 billion. “This agreement represents an important step to restore macroeconomic stability and public debt sustainability,” the statement added.

The Paris Club was formed in 1956 and is an informal group of official creditors whose role is to find coordinated and sustainable solutions to the payment difficulties experienced by borrower countries.

Paris Club members are Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States. India has been an observer state since 2019.

Sri Lanka’s foreign currency bilateral debt as at end 2021 was $ 9.6 billion or 11% of GDP as against $ 20 billion held by private creditors. Guaranteed SOEs bilateral debt was $ 300 million and those held by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka was $ 1.8 billion. Of the Paris Club members, the giant share is held by Japan (32%) followed by Korea 3%, Germany and France 2% each, USA and Spain 1% each.

Sri Lanka’s economic crisis has brought down the demand for legally produced liquor by 40 percent shying away the boozers from liquor bars and wine stores in the country at present, Excise Department head divulged.

Commissioner General of Excise M.J Gunasiri said that the demand of liquor has dropped significantly due to unbearable price hike of arrack and other alcoholic beverages by manufacturing companies and present economic hard ships faced by the people.

The daily revenue of the department has dropped by Rs 100 to Rs 150 million as the people cannot afford to buy a widely consumed 750 millilitre bottle of extra special arrack at the price of Rs.2500 an increase of Rs 680 from the previous price he revealed.

Locally manufactured beer containing 450 millilitres also rose by Rs 30 rupees, with the market price at Rs.330.

This was not due to tax hike but owing to massive decline in the buying power of people he pointed out adding that the monthly excise duty paid to the government which used to be approximately Rs 9 billion had reduced to Rs. 5.4 billion.

Liquor manufacturing companies had to make three price revisions recently due to high prices and scarcity of the main ingredient ethanol being produced locally using sugar cane which has impacted by organic fertiliser mania, a senior official of a leading distilleries company said.

Production costs and raw materials as well as other ingredient costs like essence have also increased he pointed out adding that ethanol previously priced at at Rs 500 to 600 has been increased to Rs 1000 to 1500.

Domestic ethanol production has come down drastically due to low harvests of sugar cane and corn as a result of using organic fertiliser for cultivation.

Leading local manufactures have urged the government to enable the importation of ethanol to cater even to the lower demands, as the scarcity of ethanol badly hits the industry.

Mr Gunasiri noted that excise officers are conducting raids to crack down on liquor bars and wine stores selling liquor bottle without stickers with unique code or affixed with false liquors.

He revealed that the department has recently imported 11 million security stickers from, Madras Security Printers Company of India and there was no shortage of stickers at present.

Sri Lanka’s management capability and techniques on oil spill response system will be getting updated and modernized with Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) assistance to prevent marine pollution.

The need of tackling. maritime oil spill incidents has become essential for the island nation following the two ship disasters in its territorial waters within last two years.

A fire broke out on the MT New Diamond oil tanker , about 30 nautical miles off the coast of Sri Lanka on Sept. 8, 2020 causing severe damage to natural marine environment and ecosystem

On 20 May 2021, cargo ship “X-PRESS PEARL with 1,486 containers onboard carrying dangerous cargo caught fire about nine nautical miles (16 km) off the coast of Colombo commercial shipping harbor causing massive damge to the coastline, natural marine environment and ecosystem.

Under this setup japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) launched a three year new technical cooperation project together with Japan Coast Guard (JCG)and Sri LankaCoast Guard(SLCG) in further assisting SLCGto establishan in-houseoil spill responsetraining system,an extensionof pastcooperationon oil spill incident management techniques.

Sri Lanka located on the important maritime transport route between Asia and Europe/ Middle-east, amaritime accident would have major impacts on safe navigation of vessels, maritime environmentand economic activitiesof the region.

SLCG is recognized as one of the principal players to combat maritime oil spill incidentsand JICA has extended its continuous support to SLCG since 2014up to now, including provision of two (2) patrol vessels tailored in Japan and continuous technical training to enhance SLCG’s response capacity.

Following theproject Kickoff in July 2022, a JICA mission has been deployed to SriLanka Coast Guard from 29thAugust to 2ndSeptember that consists of three (3) JCG officers including the Mobile Cooperation Team as JICA Experts and a SeniorAdvisorof JICA HQs to commence project activities in Sri Lanka.

JICA Expert members conducted an inspection of the SLCG patrol vessel 501 Samudraraksha, and 502 Samaraksha which were handed over to SLCG in year 2018,and oil spill combat equipment expected to be used in the practical training sessions.

The 3-year project aims at strengthening SLCG’s in-house training system to establish and sustain the knowledge and skills accumulated on oil spill response through the series of JICA’s cooperation in the past 10 years.

22trained SLCG instructors are expected to receive additional intensive training in Japan and Sri Lanka through transfer ofknowledge and skills used by JCG under Japan’s Official Development Assistance

.A Joint Coordinating Committee Meeting was held between SLCG, JCG and JICA on 30th August to finalize the project approach including its operational plan for the next 3 years.