Sri Lankan President Wickremesinghe set to present interim budget on Tuesday

Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who is also the finance minister, is set to present an interim budget on Tuesday, seeking enhanced expenditure and borrowing limits for his cash-strapped government.The interim budget comes amidst the governments ongoing negotiations with the International Monetary Fund IMF for a possible bailout package.The Sri Lankan Parliaments communications office last week said the lawmakers will debate the budget from Tuesday to Friday week.

Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who is also the finance minister, is set to present an interim budget on Tuesday, seeking enhanced expenditure and borrowing limits for his cash-strapped government.

The interim budget comes amidst the government's ongoing negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a possible bailout package.

The Sri Lankan Parliament's communications office last week said the lawmakers will debate the budget from Tuesday to Friday week. They will vote on it after the debate.

The budget will seek an additional sum of LKR 929.4 billion to the originally approved figure of LKR 2,796.4 billion for 2021 as the increased government expenditure, it said.

The budget will also seek an increase to the government's borrowing limit with an additional sum of LKR 892 billion -- up from the originally approved LKR 3,200 billion.

Wickremesinghe earlier said he was keen to provide relief through the interim budget to the people, who have been struggling with daily power cuts and shortages of basics such as fuel, food, and medicines.

Sri Lanka is going through its worst economic crisis since independence and high inflation has hit the public hard.

The IMF has laid down debt restructuring as a key element to any facility being approved. Sri Lanka is in dire need of bridging finance after a bailout from the global lender.

President Wickremesinghe and a visiting IMF team last week analyzed Sri Lanka's current economic crisis as the two sides began crucial talks to finalize a bailout package and secure a staff-level agreement for the cash-strapped country.

The Sri Lankan Cabinet last week also approved a budgetary framework where 9.9 percent of the Gross Domestic Product budget deficit in 2022 will be brought down to 6.9 percent by 2023.

Sri Lanka is also aiming to bring down the primary deficit, or the deficit without interest costs, a key performance criterion in an IMF fiscal framework from a negative 4 percent in 2022 to a deficit of 1 percent in 2023 in a 3 percent of GDP correction, the EconomyNext news portal reported.

In mid-April, Sri Lanka declared its international debt default due to the forex crisis.

The country owes USD 51 billion in foreign debt, of which USD 28 billion must be paid by 2027.