Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on Friday welcomed the G7’s announcement that it will help the country secure debt relief as it grapples with its worst economic crisis.

Sri Lanka is going through its worst financial crisis since its independence in 1948. The country is facing a severe shortage of foreign currency which has led to rising prices and shortages of vehicle fuel, cooking gas, food and thermal fuel for electricity. production.

At this difficult time, the Group of Seven (G7) countries have announced that they will help Sri Lanka obtain debt relief.

The G7 includes the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States.

”I welcome the G7’s announcement that they will help Sri Lanka get debt relief. The continued engagement of the international community with Sri Lanka is key to overcoming the economic crisis,’ Wickremesinghe tweeted on Friday.

Meanwhile, the Japanese government on Friday announced $1.5 million in funding to help Sri Lanka respond to the current economic crisis. The funds will be used by the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) to provide food aid to children and families in need.

On Wednesday, Sri Lankan Prime Minister Wickremesinghe said the country had missed a payment to the Asian Development Bank, blocking new funds amid warnings that the currency-hit country could be barred from multilateral funding in a new blow.

Sri Lanka has already suspended repayments of international sovereign bonds, commercial bank loans, Exim bank loans and bilateral loans. However, multilateral lenders and senior creditors were excluded.

Sri Lanka is currently negotiating a loan with the IMF. The country had to pay $106.34 million this year but only managed to pay $12.4 million in April.

The Prime Minister then declared that the debt-ridden country could not even pay a million dollars.

(This story has not been edited by the Devdiscourse team and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)