"We need to focus on essential imports and not have to worry about servicing external debt," Central Bank of Sri Lanka's governor, P. Nandalal Weerasinghe, told reporters. "It has come to a point that making debt payments are challenging and impossible." The country has foreign debt payments of around $4 billion due this year, including a $1 billion international sovereign bond maturing in July. He said Sri Lanka’s decision covers about $25 billion in bilateral and commercial debt, which includes about $12 billion of international sovereign bonds. Sri Lanka's sovereign dollar-denominated bonds enjoyed healthy gains on Tuesday, with longer-dated issues up more than 1 cent in the dollar, Tradeweb data showed.

Source: Daily Nation April 12, 2022 21:41 UTC