The World Bank has provided US $ 200 million to further enhance health sector services in Sri Lanka, a communiqué by the Colombo office of the global lender said.

The funding is expected to help the country to upgrade the standards of performance of the public health system and enable it to better respond to the challenges of a middle income country.

Accordingly World Bank will provide approximately US $ 190 million to support the implementation of the recently prepared National Health Development Plan 2013 to 2017 of the Ministry of Health and US $ 10 million will be made available for implementing innovations to improve the quality of care and efficiency of the health sector.

The IDA terms for this concessionary loan are at 1.25 percent interest rate with a grace period of 5 years and a 20 year payment period.