Bilateral credit: 75 JICA sub-projects restart with ¥ 9 B

The Government of Japan has allocated Rs. 18 billion (roughly Japanese Yen 9.17 billion) to resume 75 Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) sub-projects across Sri Lanka, almost 4 years after halting activities during Sri Lanka’s economic crisis, a statement made by the Department of Government Information on Saturday (17) said.

“The Japanese Government has decided to re-finance the Rural Infrastructure Development Project in Emerging-Regions (RIDEP) programme in the Northern, Eastern, North-Central and Uva provinces, which was halted due to the economic crisis,” the statement said.

“Accordingly, work on 75 stalled sub-projects is being resumed, with over Rs. 18 billion having been allocated. Companies that were carrying out the work have been called back to resume work and are instructed to complete the work, expeditiously.”

Back in 2022, most of Sri Lanka’s bilateral creditor funded development projects were halted due to its sovereign debt default, announced in April of 2022. By August of the same year, 12 JICA projects had been suspended – which included the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) terminal extension, as the agency stated that it was only able to issue further disbursements to its projects, only after Sri Lanka’s debt restructuring process with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was finalised.

More than a year afterwards, former State Minister of Finance Shehan Semasinghe said that Sri Lanka had halted more than 200 projects when it had declared bankruptcy. Earlier last year, Sri Lanka’s Cabinet of Ministers under the new Government greenlighted the signing of new agreements with JICA, after Sri Lanka had officially completed restructuring its loans with the Government of Japan.

Sri Lanka had by then restructured a majority of its bilateral loans, bonds and loans from private investors, since its external debt default in 2022.

The RIDEP programme, under which 75 sub-projects are to restart, includes a total of 18 projects in the Uva province; involving 12 road contracts, 2 irrigation projects and 4 drinking water projects, with an estimated cost of roughly around Rs. 3 billion, the Government statement said.

Source - The Morning