Dr. Nandalal Weerasinghe was appointed Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka while K.M.M. Siriwardena was appointed Secretary to the Ministry of Finance.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa handed over the letters of appointment on Thursday.
Dr. Weerasinghe, who has vast experience in the financial sector, served as the Alternate Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Director of Economic Research at the Central Bank, Assistant Governor and the Senior Deputy Governor of the Central Bank.
Dr. Weerasinghe was also a visiting lecturer in Master’s Degree Course in Economics at the University of Colombo and a visiting Research Economist at the SEACEN Centre, Malaysia. He is an Advisory Board Member of the Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University.
K. M. M. Siriwardana served as the Alternate Executive Director at the IMF for the Constituency comprising Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh and Bhutan. He also served as the Director General of the Fiscal Policy Department and an Additional Director General of the National Planning Department at the Finance Ministry.
Siriwardana has received international training in a number of areas including macroeconomic management, macroeconomic diagnostics and forecasting, monetary policy, central banking, public financial management, government finance, public debt management and financial programming.
Earlier, the President appointed a team of eminent economic and fiscal experts as Members of a Presidential Advisory Group on Multilateral Engagement and Debt Sustainability. The Members of the Advisory Group are Dr Indrajit Coomaraswamy, Former Governor, Central Bank of Sri Lanka and Former Director, Economic Affairs Division of the Commonwealth Secretariat, Prof. Shanta Devarajan, Professor of the Practice of Development, Georgetown University and Former Chief Economist, World Bank and Dr Sharmini Coorey, Former Director, Institute of Capacity Development of the IMF Institute, and Former Deputy Director, Africa Department, IMF.
Among the responsibilities that the Presidential Advisory Group will undertake are to engage in discussions with Sri Lankan institutions and officials, engaging with the IMF, and to provide guidance that will address the present debt crisis and lead towards sustainable and inclusive recovery for Sri Lanka.