French President Emmanuel Macron in Sri Lanka on Friday
COLOMBO – French President Emmanuel Macron, who is scheduled to stop over in Colombo for a few hours on his return from Papua New Guinea on Friday (28) will meet President Ranil Wickremesinghe, top government officials said.
The visit, deemed ‘official’ is scheduled to last through to Saturday (29) morning, and is said to be the first by a French President to Sri Lanka.
Macron is on a five-day visit to the southwest Pacific, in a “historic” move designed to bolster his Indo-Pacific strategy and reaffirm France’s role in the region. The five-day visit begins on 24 July in the French archipelago of New Caledonia, followed by stops in Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea.
In Sri Lanka, Macron’s discussions with Wickremesinghe is expected to touch on debt restructuring, according to one source. France is part of the group of countries that announced a common platform for talks among bilateral creditors to coordinate the restructuring of Sri Lanka’s debt.
The French President’s visit comes a month after Wickremesinghe went to Paris on an official invitation and took part in the Global Leaders’ Summit for a New Global Financing Pact.
At the summit and during meetings with world leaders attending the summit held from June 22-25, Wickremesinghe explained Sri Lanka’s debt restructuring measures which are linked to the release of the second tranche of the IMF’s Extended Fund Facility in September.
-ENCL/economynext.com
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