Sri Lanka Tourism will look at International lending agencies such as Asian Development Bank (ADB) to seek their financial assistance to bail out the industry, said Hotelier Asoka Hettigoda.
He said that the industry stakeholders have been speaking to the ADB seeking funds and have received positive response from this donor agency.
The ADB has indicated that they would wait until such time the International Monetary Fund (IMF) delegation currently in Sri Lanka reaches an agreement with Sri Lanka to make a further commitment in this regard.
He said that in addition, for the first time Sri Lankan travel industry will also try to obtain Green Bonds (nature swap) from several other international donor agencies/Funds.
“If this happens it would be a first for Sri Lanka.”
Asoka Hettigoda said that the leisure sector with the SME’s put together owed around Rs. 500 million (with interest) to banks and the industry is asking for a further six month moratorium for this as the moratorium ended yesterday.
“Granting this will also not have a major negative impact to the banking industry as our industry total borrowings are only around 5% of the total landings of the bank.”
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