India emerge as largest bilateral lender for Sri Lanka, overtaking China

India has emerged as the largest bilateral lender for Sri Lanka, overtaking China. India has provided a total of 968 million US dollars in loans to the island nation in four months of 2022. In the past five years from 2017-2021, China has been the largest bilateral lender to Sri Lanka.

Asian Development Bank (ADB) has been the largest multilateral lender in the past five years and disbursed funds amounting to 610 million dollars in 2021. India's Permanent Representative to the UN, Ruchira Kamboj had said that India had provided nearly 4 billion dollars in food and financial assistance to Sri Lanka. On August 22,



India handed over 21,000 tonnes of fertilizer to crisis-ridden Sri Lanka.

India has been at forefront of extending economic assistance to Sri Lanka as per their requirements and is one of the countries that have provided the maximum amount of assistance in time of need. Since the beginning of 2022, 

Sri Lanka has experienced an escalating economic crisis and the government has defaulted on its foreign loans. Sri Lanka is battling a severe economic crisis with food and fuel scarcity affecting a large number of the people in the island nation.