COLOMBO: Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe has emphasised the urgency of debt restructuring to avoid instability, said a statement from the President's Media Division (PMD).

The PMD said on Friday that the President made these remarks while participating in a high-level panel discussion at the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact in Paris on June 22.

Pointing out that Sri Lanka faced limited access to financing and took ownership of its debt and economic restructuring programme, Wickremesinghe emphasised the need for timely and automatic access to concessional financing and highlighted the high costs incurred during the process.

Sri Lanka announced a suspension of foreign debt repayments in April 2022 when it was hit by its worst financial crisis since independence, Xinhua news agency reported.

The IMF in March this year approved a 48-month extended arrangement under the Extended Fund Facility of about $3 billion to support Sri Lanka's economic policies and reforms.