COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lanka will receive a loan of $1 billion from Bank of China before the end of the March quarter, the chief of the central bank said on Thursday, to help the country meet repayments in the coming months.
"We will get the $300 million before end of this month and upsize it to $1 billion. The whole loan will be taken in the first quarter," Indrajit Coomaraswamy told Reuters.
Sri Lanka is struggling to repay its foreign loans, with a record $5.9 billion due this year including $2.6 billion in the first three months alone.
Coomaraswamy said the interest rate for the $300 mln loan is around 5.5 percent. "This is a sovereign loan and does not require any collateral." Details of the loan have not been previously released.
(Reporting by Shihar Aneez; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content