Crisis-hit Sri Lanka appoints PM to helm finance ministry
Reuters
COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe will hold dual charge as finance minister, the president’s office announced on Wednesday, and will lead talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as the crisis-hit nation seeks a bailout.
“Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was sworn in as finance, economic stabilisation and national policies minister before President Gotabaya Rajapaksa this morning,” a statement from the president’s office said.
In an interview with Reuters on Tuesday, Wickremesinghe laid out his immediate plans for the economy, including presenting an interim budget within six weeks that will slash government expenditure “to the bone” and re-route funds into a twoyear relief programme.
Sri Lanka, an island nation of 22 million people, is reeling under its worst economic crisis since independence in 1948, with a severe shortage of foreign exchange severely curtailing imports, including essentials such as fuel and medicines.
The turmoil has come from the confluence of the Covid-19 pandemic ravaging the country’s lucrative tourism industry and foreign workers’ remittances, illtimed tax cuts by Rajapaksa draining government coffers and rising oil prices.
On Tuesday, the World Bank said it is not planning to provide any new financing to Sri Lanka until an adequate economic policy framework has been put in place.
Trade minister Ramesh Pathirana told Reuters the new budget “will set out a path for multilateral institutions and other lenders to track public finance targets and hopefully extend support to Sri Lanka”.
In the interview, Wickremesinghe said he hoped for a “sustainable loan package” from the IMF, while undertaking structural reforms that would draw new investments into the country.
Initial discussions with the IMF ended on Tuesday. Earlier this week, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said the lender was “working relentlessly” at a technical level on Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka has also been officially declared in default by ratings agencies after the non-payment of coupons on two of its sovereign bonds. It has hired heavyweight financial and legal advisers Lazard and Clifford Chance as it prepares for the difficult task of renegotiating its $12 billion of overseas debt.
BEIJING: Chinese President Xi Jinping in a meeting with UN’S top human rights official on Wednesday defended China’s record, saying there is no “flawless utopia” in the world. “When it comes to human rights issues, there is no such thing as a flawless utopia,” Xi told UN human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet in a meeting via videolink
“Countries do not need patronising lecturers; still less should human rights issues be politicised and used as a tool to apply double standards, or as a pretext to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries,” he said.
Bachelet is in the middle of a six-day visit to China that includes stops in Xinjiang, a remote northwestern region where the Chinese government has been accused of human rights violations and genocide against Uighurs and other ethnic groups. Beijing has denied the allegations. Rights activists fear her visits will be a carefully orchestrated and will be used as a propaganda tool by the government.
Xi did not mention by name either Xinjiang or Tibet, another region where the government is accused of attempting to subsume the distinct local culture and language in the broader Chinese identity, but said China is following its own national conditions. “Through long-term and persistent hard work, China has successfully embarked on a path of human rights development that conforms to the trend of the times and suits its own national conditions,” he told Bachelet. Many aren’t convinced whether individual countries can follow their own version of human rights ignoring international standards.
“The world is watching the high commissioner’s trip to China, which is a critical opportunity to address the ongoing severe atrocity crimes in Xinjiang. The survivors and victims of atrocities are awaiting the outcome of the trip,” Alkan Akad of Amnesty International told Hindustan Times.
The meeting comes against the backdrop of fresh allegations of systemic abuse carried out by the Chinese government in Xinjiang.
The latest allegations of abuse in Xinjiang, collated by several western media houses under the title Xinjiang Police Files include photographs of thousands of Uighurs detained between January and July 2018 in prisons or in “re-education camps” with the youngest being just 15 years old at the time of her detention, the eldest was 73.
Beijing maintains the camps are vocational training institutes, also meant to deradicalise extremists.