- New Zealand backs IMF-Sri Lanka deal
- Reforms process must move forward
- No interest in interfering in Sri Lankan politics
- Concerned about illegal migration attempts
- Economic crisis a challenge to trade relations
At a time when sri lanka is seeking international support for a critical agreement with the International
Monetary Fund (IMF), New Zealand says it will support the proposed agreement which will ensure that Sri Lanka will not only gets funding but also ensures that the reforms programme moves forward. In an interview with Daily Mirror, the High Commissioner of New Zealand in Sri Lanka, Michael Appleton said that discouraging support for Sri Lanka over the human rights issue will be counterproductive. He also spoke about the human rights issue, illegal migration and other matters that concerned both countries.
Excerpts of the interview:
Q How would you see the relations, at the moment, between Sri Lanka and New Zealand?
Well, I think we have a very warm, very friendly and a very growing relations. Our two countries in 2016 when President Wickremesinghe was in New Zealand as Prime Minister, announced back then that we were going to open High Commissions in each other’s countries and that was a reflection of the fact that for decades we’d had very warm and substantive relations, we wanted to invest more in the relationship and try and get more out of it and we New Zealand, about 18 months ago, made good on that promise and have opened our High Commission here and the big focus of that is to try and find ways in which our two countries can cooperate to create value for both Sri Lankans and for New Zealanders.
One of our primary focuses in the High Commission was supposed to build and diversify the economic relationship between our two countries. For decades it’s been dominated by New Zealand sending milk powder to Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka sending tea and rubber to New Zealand and we very much want to diversify that trading relationship
Q So since establishing the High Commission in Sri Lanka have you seen a growth in the trade relationship?
Well, I suppose one thing that has changed is none of us anticipated 18 months ago that Sri Lanka will face a very severe economic crisis and socio- political events that surrounded that. I think that sort of has changed the context of what we are doing. One of our primary focuses in the High Commission was supposed to build and diversify the economic relationship between the two countries. For decades it’s been dominated by New Zealand sending milk powder to Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka sending tea and rubber to New Zealand and we very much want to diversify that trading relationship.
The economic crisis has, to be honest, made that more challenging because many New Zealand companies who might be considering coming here, operating here, investing here, have seen these images and these stories of a country in crisis and so part of our job is to try as Sri Lanka moves along this path hopefully from crisis to recovery, that we can start to improve that image and try to encourage New Zealand companies to look at Sri Lanka anew and to see this process of moving towards recovery is an opportunity to enter the Sri Lankan market and to make the most of that. I think there is a broad range of areas where that could happen. I think a very obvious area is in the primary industry so New Zealand makes a lot of money from making food and beverage products and we sell them all around the world. That’s one of the primary ways in which New Zealand makes money. New Zealand has only really sold milk powder in large quantities to Sri Lanka and there are many other products we could be selling. I think another area is education. Our universities are building connections with one another to help Sri Lankans go on greater numbers to New Zealand as students and those education connections can build value for both countries as well.
So, there are various opportunities but we have to acknowledge the reality of the crisis and the challenges that are present.
Q There have been concerns about political stability in Sri Lanka. Some governments or investors have also raised concerns whether they can actually put their money in a country which is unstable.
I don’t think it’s for me to comment on the current political situation. I think it is absolutely fair to say that in a situation of economic crisis if there is sort of constant tune at the political level, cabinets resigning all the time, those kinds of things, that does contribute to a sense that this is a country that’s not able to govern itself and that is not a safe place for investment and I think that’s quite important to recognize in terms of how Sri Lanka recovers from this economic crisis. I think the IMF has made this clear too, is that it’s not just economic policies that need to be considered and reformed it’s the way that Sri Lanka has governed because the crisis was not simply caused by mistakes on balance sheets, it was created by factors of how Sri Lanka governs itself. So reforms with respect to good governance but also the business environment, how easy it is to do business, transparency, combating corruption so that external investors can trust that where their money is going, where it’s meant to go, those kinds of things are very important and of course, as New Zealand looks at how Sri Lanka is recovering from the crisis it’s not just going to be a question of the balance sheet of the Sri Lankan government which obviously is a very important foundational part of Sri Lanka recovering from the crisis but also at all of these other factors.
With respect to the most challenging issue at the moment that the Sri Lankan government has identified is debt sustainability and discussions with their creditors, which includes some very large and geopolitically important countries, them getting together and coming to an agreement about what’s fair for everyone and what’s equitable for everyone and what is sustainable for Sri Lanka
Q You mentioned about the IMF. Is there a role that New Zealand can do to encourage or to persuade the IMF to reach this agreement that we are looking forward?
I think there will be a decision at some point by the IMF board and I think New Zealand has a role in it and since we are a stakeholder, we contribute to that decision-making. So, yes we absolutely have a role. As the New Zealand government’s representatives here we have a role in reporting back to our head office about what is happening here and giving an accurate picture of what other areas where progress is being made, what are the areas where maybe progress is not being made. With respect to the most challenging issue at the moment that the Sri Lankan government has identified is debt sustainability and discussions with their creditors, which includes some very large and geopolitically important countries, them getting together and coming to an agreement about what’s fair for everyone and what’s equitable for everyone and what is sustainable for Sri Lanka. Obviously Sri Lanka got itself to a position which wasn’t sustainable hence the default and now a rearrangement has to happen and so New Zealand really wants those discussions to succeed, we want Sri Lanka to get a deal with the IMF so that funding can come but more importantly that the reform programme that is being discussed between the triangle and the IMF can proceed and Sri Lanka can start to remove the causes of the economic crisis in the first place which as I’ve indicated both economic and governance causes can be looked at. So I very much hope that deal can be reached expeditiously. But I guess ultimately the speed of that is outside of our hands.
Our universities are building connections with one another and help Sri Lankans to go on greater numbers to New Zealand as students and those education connections can build value for both countries as well
Q There are attempts to discourage the IMF to reach this agreement with Sri Lanka based on Sri Lanka’s human rights record.
Well on the human rights situation I should say that through this crisis I have, like my Ambassador and High Commissioner colleagues, have from time to time made public comments about the developments here. I have no interest in interfering in Sri Lankan politics which is a matter for the Sri Lankan people and their democratically elected political leaders. But what I do have an interest in is describing the universal principles that are important, that are universally important and that Sri Lanka has signed up to internationally so that they might be upheld as Sri Lanka goes through this crisis. It can be rather straightforward to observe human rights in easy times when there’s peace and there are no challenging issues going on. But the real test of a country is, are human rights respected when the pressure really comes on and in 2022 the pressure has really come. So I have made statements publicly about the importance of freedom of speech the importance of peaceful protest, the importance of restraint on the part of both protesters and the security services of the Sri Lankan government and these are all principles that are really important to my government and through the UN process and the Human Rights Council we have expressed those. There are obviously also legacy issues that relate to the civil war, accountability issues, reconciliation issues that are important to us. Highlighting those issues is not the same as saying we don’t think any support should go to the Sri Lankan people or the Sri Lankan government until Sri Lanka is perfect on all of those issues. That would be a very counterproductive position to take. Despite talking about these various human rights issues that hasn’t stopped us from providing one and a half million dollars worth of support through UNICEF and the World Food Programme or the FAO for Sri Lankans who don’t have enough to eat or Sri Lankan farmers who don’t have inputs for their crop harvest. So it’s possible to do both things at the same time. I would come back to the IMF, we very much want that to succeed and we also very much want the Sri Lankan government to make reforms on both the economic side and the governance side. Because we believe very much in a transparent democratic system as part of Sri Lanka’s path toward recovery and we very much want to support Sri Lanka to uphold its human rights commitment. We are not going to hold one thing for ransom for one other thing. We are going to try and encourage progress across all of those things at the same time.
It can be rather straightforward to observe human rights in easy times when there’s peace and there are no challenging issues going on. But the real test of a country is, are human rights respected when the pressure really comes on and in 2022 the pressure has really come
Q There is an increase in illegal migration from Sri Lanka these days. Is this a matter of concern for New Zealand?
I should say we are very concerned about criminal organizations based in Sri Lanka who wish to prey on vulnerable people who were desperate because of the economic crisis and sell them a pipe dream of getting to New Zealand, which given the vessels they use to put these people in, as almost certainly not going to happen.
But these people are going to have their lives put at risk. These criminal organizations are essentially sending people offshore to die so they can make money. We are very concerned about it because one of the countries they are selling to these vulnerable Sri Lankans is New Zealand, So Australia has historically been a target for this but Australia has been very effective in making clear that nobody will be accepted in Australia, New Zealand is being used as sort of an alternative destination and we wish to make very clear that we want nothing to do with this and we think this is an obscene thing to happen and so one of the members of my High Commission is very focused on this issue. He works for our Police force and his job is to work with Sri Lankan authorities and in other partner countries to help detect and interdict these operations before they launch.
