India has committed 740.8 million US dollars out of 1,015 million US dollars of foreign financing to Sri Lanka in the first four months of 2012, including 275.1 million US dollars as an outright grant, official data shows.
The massive grant, which is unusual in Sri Lanka’s recent history, will go to construct 49,000 houses in North, East, Central and Uva provinces, the finance ministry said in a mid-year fiscal report.Japan had committed 175.3 million US dollars of financing including 12.6 million in grants, the Netherlands had committed 102.5 million and China, a major financier in recent years had only committed 32.5 million US dollars in fresh financing.
Multilateral agencies including the International Fund for Agriculture Development (22 million US dollars), World Bank (11 million US dollars) had committed another 37.5 million US dollars.
From January to April, 652.2 million US dollars had been disbursed including 17 million US dollars as grants.
The biggest donor of outright grants was the United States of America with 10.5 million US dollars followed by Japan at 5.2 million US dollars.
China emerged as a top financier of infrastructure in Sri Lanka over the last few years, though Japan has consistently remained the biggest lender.
Japan had disbursed 202.4 million US dollars in loans China 166.4 million US dollars, India 58.6 million US dollars, Australia 17.1 million US dollars, Sweden 14.2 million US dollars and South Korea 11.9 million US dollars.
Multilateral agencies disbursed a further 102.8 million US dollars in financing including 1.3 million US dollars in grants. Disbursements from ADB was 50.1 million US dollars with 0.1 million in grants World Bank (IDA) was 44.9 million US dollars with 0.8 million in grants.