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SL to gain market access by 2027, raise $ 1.5 billion in ISBs

SL to gain market access by 2027, raise $ 1.5 billion in ISBs

23 Mar 2023 | By Imesh Ranasinghe

  • External financing to be limited to official sources


Sri Lanka is expected to gain international market access by 2027 and raise $ 1.5 billion through the issuance of International Sovereign Bonds (ISB) and grow broadly thereafter in line with the country’s GDP, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said.


Accordingly, the report released by the IMF on the Extended Fund Facility (EFF), Sri Lanka’s external financing will only be limited to financing from official sources until 2026, in line with programme assumptions. 


During the EFF programme years (2023-27), the official programme financing will include about $ 3 billion from the IMF over 4 years, and $ 3.75 billion from other multilateral institutions. 


Moreover, the IMF said that the project loan disbursements are assumed to decline to $ 1.4 billion in 2023, as most bilateral lenders have scaled back their disbursements following the debt moratorium while project loan disbursements are assumed to increase to $ 1.5 billion in 2024 and to grow at 3% annually thereafter.


Therefore, in order to be robust to delays in market access, the report states that the Debt Sustainability Analysis (DSA) assumes that external market access to Sri Lanka is only restored in 2027 with an annual ISB issuance of $1.5 billion (1.8% of GDP) that year and thereafter grow broadly in line with the GDP.


The remaining fiscal financing needs are expected to be met from domestic sources, through the issuance of T-bills and T-bonds, and domestic T-bond interest rates are assumed to gradually decline from around 21% (period average) in 2022 to their steady-state level of around 10% in 2026 as inflation declines towards the target band.


Similarly, T-bill rates are assumed to decline from around 20% in 2022 (period average) to 7.5% in 2026. The market rates are expected to adjust higher if inflation surprises on the upside.


The IMF expects the Gross International Reserves of Sri Lanka to reach $ 14.2 billion by 2027 while it is forecasted that the country will receive $ 7.8 billion in project loans between 2023-2027.


 




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