Sri Lanka should consider asking lenders like China to waive off loans, former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said during an exclusive interview with Indian global news network - WION news.

Responding to a query that if  Sri Lanka would do the same as Pakistan by asking loan waivers from lenders including China, Wickremesinghe said :

"We can ask China, but whether it is China or any other country, they will all have to take a policy decision. If you give one, you have to give the others."

"But our problem is that the bulk of our foreign loans, about 50% of our debt is international sovereign bonds. Sri Lanka has to pay a billion dollars in a few months time. We take it off our reserves and our reserves will come down. I can’t see any new money coming in. Earlier we balanced it out and we are on the path to repayment. I think the government is now talking with the IMF and they have restored the revenue to the levels that the IMF wanted, but it is going to be difficult. We will somehow pay this money I feel, but our reserves will go down further  and there is no way of meeting that gap. So, we are all going to be in trouble, if not by this year then by next year. The creditor countries must look  favourably on the debtor countries, " he said.

Meanwhile, speaking further Wickremesinghe noted that the coronavirus crisis has highlighted the lack of global leadership,

“It is a collective failure of the leaders and of the institutions," he noted.

"The IMF, World Bank, WHO, the UN - someone has to come forward and lead the world during a crisis,which is not happening. When it came to climate change there were people. Like the former French president - Hollande, Obama and others who took leadership. In World War II, Roosevelt took leadership But here, who is taking leadership? Here, no one is talking. Some of them are fighting. It's a global pandemic, not a national issue. A global pandemic needs a global response. Some people have to to step up and say this is the way to do it. That is my point, " Wickremesinghe stressed.

Noting down the lockdown has been successful, Wickremesinghe stated that the health workers, the military and the police are doing a wonderful job. 

"The private sector and people are cooperating. but, where the government I think made a lapse is that they did not get the equipment  early in January. We should have got more testing kits, more face masks, more ventilators and we delayed on that," he said.

"However, they are sufficient now because we have to lift this lockdown partially and bring the economy back on. We need to keep testing like Germany and South Korea” he added.

Full interview can be viewed below: