Cash-strapped Sri Lanka asks to reschedule Chinese debt

The island country's tourism-dependent economy has been hammered by the pandemic and its depleted foreign exchange reserves have led to food rationing at supermarkets and shortages of essential goods.
Key ally China is Sri Lanka's biggest bilateral lender. Chineses minister Wang's visit comes after a warning from international ratings agencies that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's government could be on the brink of default.
In fact, Sri Lanka's foreign reserves had dropped to just $1.5 billion at the end of November -- enough to pay for only about a month's worth of imports.
Sri Lanka has borrowed heavily from China for infrastructure, some of which ended up as white elephants. Unable to repay a $1.4 billion loan for a port construction in southern Sri Lanka, Colombo was forced to lease out the facility to a Chinese company for 99 years in 2017.
Cash-strapped Sri Lanka has now sought to reschedule its huge Chinese debt burden in talks with visiting foreign minister Wang Yi. China has offered the Maldives infrastructure maintenance, medical aid and visa concessions as Beijing moved to strengthen its connections with the strategically placed archipelago.