Sri Lanka is in talks with the Beijing-backed Asian Infrastructure\nInvestment Bank for a $1 billion dollar loan, the finance ministry said, to\nhelp an economy that has been badly hit by a deadly terrorist attack and\npolitical turmoil.\n\n\n\n\u201cWe have been discussing with the Asian Infrastructure Investment\nBank to obtain nearly an additional $1 billion for further development of the\nPower and Highway sectors,\u201d the ministry said in a statement late on Thursday.\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ministry said that the bank also approved $280 million for a renovations\nin the capital Colombo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ministry said that there are projects worth around $271 million being\ncarried out across the country to boost growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sri Lanka has been beset by political infighting since President Maithripala\nSirisena sacked Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in October last year,\nbefore reinstating him weeks later after a constitutional crisis that hit the\neconomy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More recently, the lucrative tourism industry was badly hit after the Easter\nSunday bomb attacks by Islamic militants that killed 250 people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sri Lanka\u2019s economy grew at 3.7 per cent, its fastest pace in nearly a year\nfrom January to March, accelerating from a growth rate of 1.8 per cent the\nprevious quarter \u2013 its slowest pace since early 2014, due to the political\ncrisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But despite the recovery at the start of the year, growth will likely slump\nto a nearly two-decade low in 2019, a Reuters poll showed, as tourism, foreign\ninvestment and business activity eased sharply in the wake of the bombings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last month, central bank Governor Indrajit Coomaraswamy said he expected the\neconomy to grow by 3 per cent or less this year, due to the impact of the\nbombings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The bank had earlier projected 4 per cent growth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sri Lanka is in talks with the Beijing-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank for a $1 billion dollar loan, the finance ministry said, to help an economy that has been badly hit by a deadly terrorist attack and political turmoil. \u201cWe have been discussing with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to obtain nearly an additional $1 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":2714,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[58],"class_list":["post-2713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs-articles","tag-international-current-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2713"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2715,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2713\/revisions\/2715"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}