Sri Lanka fiscally vulnerable, says World Bank
[TamilNet, Friday, 10 October 2008, 14:35 GMT]
Sri Lanka is named as one of the twenty eight countries as "fiscally vulnerable" in a report released by the World Bank Thursday. The report published ahead of the meetings of finance and development ministers,organized by the World Bank and IMF, said many of these countries had little or no room to take on new debt to afford the higher prices.
The financial strains due to high food and fuel costs, and the recent credit crisis that has affected the global financial markets, the report said.
Other countries included in the list are Jordan, Cambodia, Lebanon, Jamaica, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Tajikistan, Madagascar, Nepal, Rwanda, Malawi, Ivory Coast, Eritrea, Fiji, Haiti, Seychelles and Mauritania.
World Bank President Robert Zoellick said the Bank was tentatively forecasting growth in developing countries could slow to around 4 percent, significantly lower than its April forecast of 6.6 percent.
"The poorest cannot be asked to pay the biggest price," Zoellick said. "For the poor, the costs of crisis can be life-long," Reuters quoted Zellick as saying.
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