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The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is exploring ways to enactment Sri Lanka successful its betterment process pursuing cyclone Ditwah, which has caused wide demolition successful the land federation and near much than 450 dead.
At a property briefing connected Thursday (December 4, 2025), IMF spokesperson Julie Kozack said the Washington-based planetary lender is "continuing to enactment Sri Lanka's recovery, reform, and resilience nether the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) arrangement". Ms. Kozack conveyed her deepest sympathies to those affected by the cyclone, and said the IMF is "closely engaging" with the Sri Lankan authorities, improvement partners, and different counterparts to measure its humanitarian-, social-, and economical impact.
"Staff and the Sri Lankan authorities reached an statement connected the 5th reappraisal backmost successful October, earlier the cyclone. And astatine present, unit is looking into options to further enactment Sri Lanka successful the betterment process," Ms. Kozack said.
From today's property briefing: I announced the Managing Director's question to Asia and Europe, and answered questions connected Argentina, Jamaica, Japan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Ukraine and more: https://t.co/emX3cNFPmx
— Julie Kozack, IMF (@IMFSpokesperson) December 4, 2025Sri Lanka is grappling with wide flooding, landslips and terrible infrastructural illness triggered by cyclone Ditwah, which near respective districts isolated and severely straining the country's disaster-response capacity.
Ms. Kozack said an IMF committee is "still expected" to conscionable connected December 15 to sermon the adjacent reappraisal of Sri Lanka’s EFF programme. Sri Lanka is expected to gully its sixth tranche of the astir $3 cardinal IMF bailout, and the nation's authorities are hopeful of its aboriginal release.
The 48-month extended fund-facility woody with the IMF successful March 2023 carried hard reforms to Sri Lanka's welfare-based governance. It was signed aft Sri Lanka plunged into an unprecedented economical meltdown with its first-ever sovereign default.
On the IMF's enactment to the land federation pursuing the devastating cyclone, Ms. Kozack said, "We volition beryllium providing further details arsenic the appraisal of economical needs and damages moves forward, and arsenic we person much accusation that tin pass our ain reasoning astir the options for however we tin further enactment Sri Lanka."The land federation is successful the process of estimating the outgo of cyclone Ditwah devastation. According to archetypal estimates, $6-7 cardinal would beryllium required arsenic the nonaccomplishment would beryllium astir 3-5% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
According to a study by Sri Lanka's Disaster Management Centre aboriginal connected Friday (December 5, 2025), 486 radical person been killed and 341 are missing owing to catastrophic floods and landslips caused by utmost upwind conditions since November 16. Since the cyclone, calls for concessions from the IMF person travel to the fore from some the authorities and the opposition.
