Following improved security situation:

War risk rating - Sri Lanka confident of further downgrading

Sanjeevi Jayasuriya

Sri Lanka is looking forward to a further downgrading of its war risk ratings towards the end of the year or before. We are grateful to the political leadership, the defence forces and the police for defeating terrorism and ending the war which will have a positive bearing on the ratings, said the Convenor of the Asian Shippers’ Council (ASC) AGM Rohan Masakorala.

The ASC AGM will to be held from August 13-15 in Colombo. The country’s war risk rating was revised from severe rating to high-risk rating.

The overall ratings have five categories of low risk, caution, medium, high risk and severe.

“We are now at a 3 point level in the high risk category, down from the 3.4 point level. One category has ten point levels. With the improved security situation in the country, we hope that our rating will improve further Sri Lanka has not been assessed after May 18 and once the assessment is completed we are hopeful that there will be a revision in the war risk surcharge.

We are trying to achieve the second step ‘caution’ and hope to get there fast, he said.

The war risk surcharge has affected the country in many ways including the level of prices of imported items as it accounted for a substantial portion. The country has enormous opportunities and lowering the risk rating will be a plus factor, he said.

A country’s ranking is a guideline for insurance companies.

According to the ranking, insurance companies can decide on the premium. The high-risk ranking is a negative perception and it is wrong that Sri Lanka is in this category since after May 18 the situation has changed drastically.

We have started lobbing for a downward revision as the ranking was given based on the assessment conducted in January this year, he said.