Free Trade Zones & General Services Employees’ Union

Care of his excellency the Ambassodor to the France in Colombo,
BY ELECTRONIC MAIL
2023 January 13
The Chair,
Mr. Emmanuel Moulin
General Secretariat
Paris Club,
Générale du Trésor – 139,
rue de Bercy – 75572 Paris Cedex 12,
France.
multifin1-club-de-paris@dgtresor.gouv.fr

Dear Mr. Moulin,
Endorsing public request to abolish Sri Lankan loans as appealed
by 182 internationally recognized economists and development experts – January 2023
We are certain, you are well aware by now a wide cross-section of academics and experts across the world totaling 182 signatories have on 08 January 2023 made a public appeal to all lenders – bilateral, multilateral, and private – to share the burden of Sri Lanka’s debt crisis by debt cancellation. They are not mere private individuals to be ignored. Their collective voice represents the voice of the global intelligentsia, speaking out in favour of a more decent and equitable global society. As they say, It is, therefore, crucial not only for the people of Sri Lanka but to restore any faith in a multilateral system that is already under fire for its lack of legitimacy and basic viability”.
In Sri Lanka their public appeal on the burden of debts and international support demands, ….All lenders—bilateral, multilateral, and private—must share the burden of restructuring, with the assurance of additional financing in the near term. However, Sri Lanka on its own cannot ensure this; it requires much greater international support. Instead of geopolitical maneuvering, all of Sri Lanka’s creditors must ensure debt cancellation sufficient to provide a way out of the current crisis.”
It is accepted the Sri Lankan People need an urgent answer to the current debt crisis, and they do need international support to get out of the debt crisis. There is no doubt the Paris Club as an informal group of official creditors whose role is to find coordinated and sustainable solutions to the payment difficulties experienced by debtor countries” does understand the gravity of the crisis the Sri Lankan people have been dragged into. According to the Department of External Resources, major lenders by the end of April 2021 were Asian Development Bank (13 percent), Japan (10 percent), China (10 percent), and World Bank (09 percent), with market borrowings at 47 percent. We feel confident, the Paris Club could reach out to almost all creditors including private creditors in creating a responsible forum that would consider the appeal of the global intelligentsia to share the burden of restructuring.
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Mr. D
We in Sri Lanka need immediate relief for the external debt crisis, which will not be urgently addressed through the IMF extended fund facility that may not be finally agreed upon till the second quarter of this year. Recent social surveys by international organizations reveal growing rural poverty leading to many social setbacks and complications including growing malnutrition among children and an increase in school dropouts due to unbearable economic hardships.
It is also our sad experience with international assistance, that all benefits and relief afforded to Sri Lanka in the past have never been translated for the benefit of its Citizens. They have always been pilfered away often as undeclared profits for privileged businesses. A clear instance had been benefits afforded to Sri Lanka from EU GSP from 2002 and thereafter GSP ‘Plus’ since 2005.
With such an unfortunate experience that we do not want a repeat of, we wish to appeal to you as one of the most influential global groups of creditors to ensure debt cancellation sufficient to provide a way out of the current crisis” with conditions laid down for the Government of Sri Lanka to –

1. Abolish all direct and indirect taxes on essential food items to benefit the poor and the marginalized
2. Withdraw all proposals and measures aimed at increasing tariffs on electricity and fuel prices that would otherwise impact adversely on the cost of living, and
3. Establish a national tri-partite council for economic reforms responsible to the parliament that would not have partisan politics in policy making.
   Considering the urgency in finding a practical solution to the current debt crisis that holds the People of Sri Lanka in a fast-declining economy, we expect Paris Club to respond most positively in influencing all lenders to share the burden of the poor and the marginalized in particular and Sri Lanka as a sovereign nation.
   Thank you in anticipation,
   Yours most sincerely,
   Anton Marcus
   Joint Secretary
   Free Trade Zones & General Services Employees’ Union
   Cc. 1. Minister of the Economy, Finance and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty, Bruno Le Maire
4. Signatories Appeal by Academics – January 2023