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The International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced on Saturday that it had reached a staff-level agreement under Sri Lanka’s $US3 billion bailout loan program with the new Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)/National Peoples Power (NPP) government and thanked it for its “excellent collaboration.”

The agreement was announced just two days after President Anura Dissanayake stated in his policy address to parliament on Thursday that the government was committed to implement the IMF demands in full, ditching his previous promise to “renegotiate” the terms.

All of this is being done in the name of establishing “debt sustainability”—that is, creating conditions to resume loan repayments after the previous Gotabhaya Rajapakse government defaulted in April 2022. From 2028, the Sri Lankan government must resume the payment of $5 billion annually to the international loan sharks.

In his inaugural speech to the parliament, Dissanayake made clear that his government had rapidly caved in to IMF demands on debt restructuring. The discussions, he said, were in the final stages and his government would reach a common understanding regarding bilateral debt without “debating” whether the plan was “good or bad”—effectively junking his criticisms of the previous President Ranil Wickremesinghe government.