Sri Lanka's Public Private Partnership Agency is currently having discussions with china development bank to pay off two third of SriLankan airlines debt under a re–financing system and to take the burden off the national carrier.

This was revealed by the PPP agency chairman Thilan Wijesinghe during the parliamentary committee on public enterprises which took place yesterday.

“Around US $250 million of capital is needed to revive this,” Wijesinghe said.

Meanwhile responding to legislators, Secretary to the Ministry of Finance, Dr. R.H.S. Samaratunga stated that the government has not yet taken a decision on whether debt amounting to US $900 million should be settled by the government itself.

“There are major two issues we have.”

“One is someone has to pay this debt off. The Second is, even if someone repays this debt, there should be an investor to maintain the entity.”

“As the ministry of Finance, all we can say is that we cannot take responsibility for paying this debt,” he added.