Sri Lanka appoints new central bank governor

In addition, KMM Siriwardhana was appointed as the new secretary to the country's Ministry of Finance.

The appointment letters were handed over by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to the appointed individuals in the afternoon on Thursday.

Weerasinghe has worked at the University of Colombo, as an external speaker for a post-degree in economics and as an external research economist at the Siasan Center in Malaysia. He is also a member of the advisory board at the Australian National University of Crawford's Public Policy and Applied Economic Analysis Center.

KMM Siriwardhana worked as the Alternative Executive Director of the International Finance Fund for Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh and Bhutan. He has also served as the Director-General of the State Finance Department and the Additional Director General of the National Planning Department.

Earlier, Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Wednesday night appointed a new financial and economic team for multilateral affairs and debt sustainability.

The members of the advisory group include Indrajit Coomaraswamy, former Governor of Central Bank of Sri Lanka and former Director of Economic Affairs Department, Shanta Devarajan, Professor of Development Scheme at Georgetown University and former Chief Economist of World Bank, and Sharmini Coorey, former Director of Corporate Capacity Development and former Deputy Director of African Department of International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Sri Lanka is battling a severe economic crisis with food and fuel scarcity affecting a large number of the people in the island nation. The economy has been in a free-fall since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sri Lanka is also facing a foreign exchange shortage, which has, incidentally, affected its capacity to import food and fuel, leading to the power cuts in the country. The shortage of essential goods forced Sri Lanka to seek assistance from friendly countries. (ANI)