President confident Sri Lanka would not face food security issues next year

 

President confident Sri Lanka would not face food security issues next year President Ranil Wickremesinghe, addressing the parliamentary session today (Nov. 09), expressed confidence that Sri Lanka would not face any food security issues next year. 

“However, the situation in Africa is pretty bad,” President Wickremesinghe said noting that some 20 - 30 million would be affected. The African countries are affected, especially by the fact that most are in debt, President Wickremesinghe remarked. “So in my view, we should give those countries that are having serious problems with food scarcity, the same terms that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) gave to Ukraine. 

Ukraine was fighting a war with Russia. “So these are major issues which will be a part of our foreign policy and environmental policy in the coming era.” “They [G20 countries] had not, in any way, contributed the USD 100 million that they promised. Now, if you look at the COP27 arrangements, we found that none of the developed countries or the G20 was there to have some serious conversations with the others. 

In that background, I think, Sri Lanka, I and some of the others had to condemn and criticize the stand that had been taken by the G20 countries, the G7 and the developed economies. There are serious issues that the world faces. Speaking further, President Wickremesinghe, during a discussion held on the sidelines of COP27, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva promised to assist Sri Lanka. So, now we only have to discuss with China and India. China asked us to commence talks after their party convention.