Dinesh Gunawardena, the Sri Lankan Prime Minister, will visit China next week, the foreign ministry said. China is Sri Lanka’s biggest bilateral lender. Gunawardena’s visit will be for five days.
“At the invitation of Premier Li Qiang of the State Council, Prime Minister… of Sri Lanka Dinesh Gunawardena will pay an official visit to China from March 25 to 30,” Lin Jian, the foreign ministry spokesperson, said in a statement.
China accounts for 10% of the island’s total foreign debt.
The Chinese foreign ministry said that China attaches great importance to Beijing-Colombo relations. “China attaches great importance to the development of China-Sri Lanka relations. (Both nations will) jointly build the Belt and Road with high quality, expand exchanges and cooperation in various fields,” Jian said in a reference to a vast infrastructure project that is a central pillar of President Xi’s bid to expand China’s clout overseas.
Beijing said Friday Gunawardena would meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping during his visit for “an in-depth exchange of views on continuing China-Sri Lanka traditional friendship”.
The island-nation defaulted on its $46 billion external debt in April 2022. It ran out of forex and had colossal problems financing essential imports such as food, fuel and medicine. It secured a $2.9 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout last year, with the programme conditional on a debt deal that satisfies foreign creditors.
The IMF said this week that it had reached a staff-level agreement with Colombo to clear the way for the release of $337 million, the third instalment of the four-year bailout.
But it said the “critical” next steps were to finalise agreements with creditors.