ADB considers $250 mln budget support to SL
View(s):The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is mulling a US$250 million budget support concessionary loan for Sri Lankan projects, an official source said.
He added that if this goes through, some $500,000 will be allocated for capital market development. A 6-member ADB team was in town recently meeting up with key officials in major state agencies such as the Central Bank, Treasury, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) among others.
“The ADB wants the pension funds to play a bigger role in the capital markets,” an official told the Business Times. According to a SEC source, the capital market regulator has requested for ADB’s technical assistance on their Central Counterparty (CCP) which will see implementation of a Clearing & Settlement System along with demutualisation and dematerialisation (the process through which a member-owned company becomes shareholder-owned) of the CSE. The ADB has plans to lend some $ 2 billion to Sri Lanka starting this year. -(DEC)