The authorising US statute only allows the Millennium Challenge Corporation to fund low income and lower-middle income countries, and as Sri Lanka has transitioned into an upper-middle-income country, its window of opportunity to capitalise on the MCC could be closing, an official said.

“This is not unique to Sri Lanka. We are not pushing it. So we have signed 37 different grant agreements. Most of our partner countries are in Africa, because we partner with lower and lower- middle income countries. Sri Lanka is eligible now because of its good performance. The reason we were communicating a sense of urgency around signing this agreement is because Sri Lanka graduated to upper middle income statues in July. That is good for the country. However, historically we only have ever partnered with lower and lower- middle income countries. In 2020 Sri Lanka will no longer be eligible for this,” Jenner Edelman, Sri Lanka country director for the Millennium Challenge Corporation said at a forum organized by Advocata Institute.

“In our 15 year history, we’ve never had a situation where an eligible country has come to us and proposed a grant, our board has accepted it. So it is up to you decide whether you want to take the grant or continue taking up loans, Edelman said responding to a question from the audience.

Speaking further Edelman noted that if necessary Sri Lanka may request to remove a land deed modernization project using grant aid from America’s Millennium Challenge Corporation.

“Right now the government has proposed to us a 480 million dollar grant: 350 million dollar for transport and 67 million dollars for land, we have not received a request from the government to modify that in any way because we understand that land administration is a priority for Sri Lanka. If that is not a priority for Sri Lanka it will have to communicate that to us and ask to modify the agreement.”

“We modify these agreements all the time. It took us three year to get to this level. Things change all the time.”  Edelman said.