Team Blitz India
NEW DELHI: Sri Lankan Parliament Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena on July 8 expressed his gratitude to “trustworthy friend” India for preventing a “bloodbath” during its unprecedented economic crisis last year.
He said that not a single nation has extended that kind of assistance to Colombo as done by New Delhi. Sri Lanka was hit by a catastrophic financial crisis in 2022, the worst since its independence from Britain in 1948, due to a severe paucity of foreign exchange reserves.
As the country struggled, locked in the throes of the crisis, India extended multi-pronged assistance of about $ 4 billion to it last year, through multiple credit lines and currency support, in line with India’s ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy.
In his address at a ginner reception hosted for delegates of the Indian Travel Congress, Abeywardena said India “saved us” from a bloodbath.”
He thanked India for the help extended to the cash-strapped nation and recalled the civilisational ties and similarities between the two countries and their cultures.
“Sri Lanka and India are very, very closely interconnected countries, culturally, nationally, and policy-wise, and above all, India has been a very close associate and trustworthy friend of Sri Lanka,” he added.