Sri Lanka aims to cut fiscal deficit in budget 2023

 

Sri Lanka aims to cut fiscal deficit in budget 2023 Sri Lanka’s 2023 budget would aim to reduce the fiscal deficit to 6.8 per cent in 2023 from the projected 9.9 per cent in 2022, a senior Cabinet Minister said on Tuesday, ahead of the visit by the IMF delegation for a bailout package to the crisis-hit island nation. 

“Sri Lanka is planning to cut the budget deficit to 6.8 per cent of gross domestic product in 2023 from an expected 9.9 per cent in 2022,” Bandula Gunawardena, the Cabinet spokesman and Minister of Mass Media said on Tuesday. Sri Lanka is facing the worst fiscal crisis in its history,” he said. 

The government’s statistics office said on Monday that the overall rate of inflation as measured by the National Consumer Price Index on a year-on-year basis had gone up to 66.7 per cent in July over the 58.9 recorded in June. 

In its latest assessment, the World Bank has said that Sri Lanka has been ranked 5th with the highest food price inflation in the world. The World Bank said record high food prices have triggered a global crisis that will drive millions more into extreme poverty, magnifying hunger and malnutrition while threatening to erase hard-won gains in development.