🇱🇰 IMF Success ≠ Long-Term Growth: Economist's Caution 📈

• Sri Lanka has overperformed IMF program targets, achieving notable macroeconomic stability across Inflation, primary surplus, and interest rates, which is commendable given the 2022 crisis. • Caution: Achieving IMF targets ensures stabilization (the IMF's core mandate), but is not a guarantee of long-term economic growth or debt sustainability. SL's current debt burden is much higher, and credit ratings are lower than during previous periods of macro stability (1994-2019). • Lessons from Argentina's 2001 default (complacency despite IMF praise) and Mexico's 1994-95 near-default (vulnerability to external shocks like rising US interest rates) show risks remain. • Current economic growth is largely a cyclical recovery (driven by consumer spending/investment), not by structural reforms or technological infusion (per IPS State of the Economy 2025 report). • Long-term salvation depends solely on building a vibrant export sector, increased FDIs, and sustained reduction in borrowing costs.