- Thursday, February 27, 2025
India came to the aid of its maritime neighbour by means of multiple credit lines and currency support after it faced an unprecedented financial crisis.
By: Shubham Ghosh
SRI LANKAN parliament’s speaker Mahinda Yapa Aneywardena has thanked India calling it a “trustworthy friend” which saved the island-nation and prevented a “bloodbath” during its unprecedented economic crisis last year.
He said not a single nation extended the kind of assistance like India did.
Sri Lanka was rocked by a catastrophic financial crisis in 2022, the worst since it gained independence from Britain in 1948, because of a serious paucity of foreign exchange reserves.
It was then when India extended multi-pronged assistance of nearly $4 billion to the country — by means of multiple credit lines and currency support — in line with its ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy.
In his address at a dinner reception hosted for delegates of the Indian Travel Congress in Colombo on Friday (7), Abeywardena said India “saved us” during the financial crisis, otherwise, there would have been “another bloodbath for all of us”.
At the evening reception, he thanked India for the help extended to the cash-strapped nation and recalled the civilisational ties and similarities between the two countries and their cultures.
“Sri Lanka and India are very, very closely interconnected countries, culturally, nationally, and policy-wise, and above all, India has been a very close associate and trustworthy friend of Sri Lanka,” Abeywardena said, adding that when “we were in trouble”, India always helped out.
“And, even this time, today, I heard that India is willing to extend our restructuring of loans for 12 years. Never expected, and never in history, not a single country has extended that kind of assistance,” he said.
He recalled the helping hand lent by India during the period of trouble last year that devastated the Sri Lankan economy, pushing it into a debt crisis. ”
His remarks came in the presence of the Indian high commissioner to Sri Lanka Gopal Baglay; Sri Lanka’s tourism and lands minister Harin Fernando and other senior officials of the Sri Lankan government. “Your ambassador here, (is a) very close friend of ours. We love and respect him,” the speaker said, referring to Baglay.
Later, in an interaction with PTI on the sidelines of the reception, Abeywardena said, “India has always come to aid of Sri Lanka” in times of crises, and laid emphasis on the financial assistance given by New Delhi last year when the island nation was mired in the economic turmoil.
“That helped us survive for six months in the midst of the crisis,” he said “We thank India for the kind gesture, and I also say, thank you, honourable prime minister of India (Narendra Modi).”
(With agency inputs)
