"This time must be different!" IMF First Deputy MD Dr. Gita Gopinath tells SL

Sri Lanka yesterday received what can be called a charged address from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which declared that the island nation’s recovery from its worst economic crisis in decades must not be wasted.

- By SHABIYA ALI AHLAM

“This time must be different!” said visiting IMF First Deputy Managing Director Dr. Gita Gopinath to Sri Lanka’s leadership yesterday, in a message that felt part warning and part vote of confidence.

“We believe this (current IMF programme being the last) is possible if Sri Lanka stays the course,” she told a room full of key decision makers of the country, including President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, what was also a stern call to break the past trends of aborted reforms.

Dr. Gita shared her views while addressing a conference themed ‘Sri Lanka’s Road to Recovery: Debt and Governance’, co-hosted by the Finance Ministry, Central Bank of Sri Lanka and IMF. The message comes as Sri Lanka is halfway through the IMF-supported programme and 75 years into the country’s engagement with the IMF. It also marked the first time in two decades that a serving First Deputy Managing Director has visited the island nation.

She commended Sri Lanka taking painful but necessary measures to pull its economy out from a free fall three years ago, when foreign reserves were depleted, inflation was spiralling and citizens queued for essentials such as fuel and medicine, amid crippling shortages. In 2022, it defaulted on its foreign debt, the first external default in its history.