 Just waiting till everybody has found a seat. Very good. Welcome, everybody. Welcome here in the room and on the live stream. Welcome to this press conference at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum 2016 here in Davos. We're particularly pleased and honored to be joined by Mr. Ranil Vikramasinghe, the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka today for this press conference. And without further ado, Mr. Prime Minister, please. Thank you for inviting me, both to Davos and to meet the press. The first time we've been invited. It's also for Sri Lanka a unique occasion when we have formed a government of the two main parties. This has never happened in any part of South Asia or Southeast Asia. And we have started off on a great experiment. Firstly, of reconciliation or bringing the country together where people had grown apart as a result of a long drawn out war of nearly 30 years. One of establishing a constitutional, re-establishing a constitutional democracy and also having a framework of agreement on the major economic and social problems that the day that we do a part company after the next elections or thereafter, there will still be a national policy in place and whoever governs will not change it. So these are the challenges that we are facing as you have already been, those of you are following Sri Lanka, where are the progress we've made of the resolution, the unanimous resolution that has been passed in Geneva, the opening up of the economy. But I don't like to take too much of the time describing what we have done, but leave it open to you to ask for any questions or any clarifications which you require. Thank you very much, Mr. Prime Minister. So we have microphones. If I can see a show of hands for any questions and if you could then state your name and organization for the sake of our online audience, please. Yes, the lady in the front here, please. So Jathara with Reuters. Mr. Prime Minister, I wanted to ask you about the possibility of an IMF loan deal or a standby agreement, whatever you had in mind with the IMF. When do you expect to sign this? What kind of agreement are you looking for? What kind of amount? We are having discussions with the IMF. We have not concluded discussions. I'm even meeting with the managing director of the IMF while here in Davos. But we've also been discussing with many of the others. One is the Sri Lankan economy needs has to be restructured. Our sources of foreign exchange journey are limited. As a result, the imbalance in the balance of payment cannot be corrected without any major restructuring. There has been certainly a drop in the revenue collection of this country. The mechanism is not working. We are also being buffeted by what's happening internationally. Certainly the global economy has not recovered fast enough and then it's compounded by the fact that China has decided now to become a consumption oriented economy and it's going through adjustments as their currency becomes one of the SDR currencies in the IMF but that's having an impact on the world. Price of oil coming down, that is advantages but there are also certain problems we have. We did have the Sri Lanka economic forum where we discussed fully some of the issues of Sri Lanka. We've been discussing the private sector. Once I talk with the IMF, we'll look at a contingency plans for the future. We are not, no one is sure in this world how it eventually turn out in 2016. Secondly, we want to be strong enough to face any contingency and to carry out our restructuring and everyone has found out in the last few months they've all had to devise their budgets and devise their targets for the uncertain global situation. So it's not surprising that we're having discussions and if need be, we'll come to an appropriate arrangement with the IMF. Thank you very much. We have a question, the gentleman in the back. Can we get the microphone to the side of the room please? David Williams from Agence France-France. I just want to ask if in your plans for reconciliation in the country, if you have any further plans to reach out to the Tamils and in particular if there are any plans or is there any possibility for a release of Tamil political prisoners? Well, we have reached out with the Tamils. We are discussing with the Tamil parties and other organizations. The Minister, under the Minister of Foreign Affairs, there's one group that is working on the questions of accountability. We are having discussions with the Tamil parties on the new constitution, on the election system which affects all the parties on further devolution in the country. As far as the, then we have also handed back some more land from the military back to the people. There are more land that will be handed back in the coming few months or we'll identify the time or we'll lay down the time frame for the handing of those lands. Tamils are being recruited into the police force. We started by asking for 500. Tamils to be recruited. Gradually things are getting back onto track. We have no political prisoners any more in the country in the, among the signallies or Tamils. There are 290 of whom some of them are already convicted while there are trials in case of others. This is the residue after a large number of them were released. As it is, they are now still looking at some of these cases to see what relief could be given. And the Minister for Prison Reform, Mr. Swaminathan is holding discussions on the issue with the Minister of Justice and the representatives of the Tamil National Alliance. Thank you. There's another question, please. Hi, I'm with China-Shinhua News Agency. So as a developing country, do you think what opportunities or challenges does Sri Lanka faces when engaging into the first industrial revolution? And concerning China's role, do you think, how do you evaluate China's role in the regional development or the security situation? Thank you. Well, China is one of the largest economic powers in the world, and therefore China is reaching out to the rest of the world. As a result, they're also operating here in our part of the world, in the Indian Ocean. Within Sri Lanka, there's a large number of projects, infrastructure development, which have been funded by the Chinese government. So we are going ahead with many of those projects, including the Port City, the further development of the Hambantu Rahab, but we've also said we'd like to see Chinese investments. Infrastructure development alone is not sufficient. Now we are discussing of bringing in Chinese investments in here, as I think the Chinese government has also decided that some of its manufacturing industry should move out. And Sri Lanka seems to be one of the locations for their industries to move out. We are looking at the Chinese participation in the Logistics Hub of Sri Lanka, as well as further investments in the real estate sector. So I don't... Yes, we have one more question there. It's slightly moving to a different topic. I'm just wondering if... I think for many people, at least in the Commonwealth region, the Sri Lankan cricket team is probably one of the highest profile parts of the country. I just wondering if you have any comment or feelings about the allegations of corruption and match-pixing, which at the moment are swirling around the Sri Lankan cricket team. Bit of an off-topic question, but... All allegations have to be investigated. In fairness to the players and in fairness to the Sri Lankan team and to Sri Lanka. We have not... I have two questions, sir. You mentioned the need to restructure the economy. So what is your priority? What is the main thing that you want to tackle first? The second question is that this year's budget has a deficit of 5.9%, I think, of GDP. So how do you propose to fill that? Will you come to bond markets again? Or do you think you might get financing from China? As we said, since the budget, the whole global situation has changed. I don't think any country in the world can forecast what the budget deficit should be. This is why we are talking with the IMF on what's the program that we should have. And fiscal consolidation, value for money would be one of the important parts of the budget. The depreciation of the Asian currencies started with the adjustment of the Chinese currencies means that we will have to re-look at our figures as we go, not only Sri Lanka, but all countries are getting affected by what's happening there. So it's very, very uncertain here where we have to raise money on the bond markets. We'll do that. But gradually, we'd like to see more and more private investments coming in over a period of time. Thank you. That allows us to squeeze in a question that reached us through social media. So the climate negotiations and the climate agreement COP21 in Paris was widely hailed as a success. And people were asking us through Facebook about your perspective for the agreement. Would you agree that it's been a success? It depends on how many people sign it up, how many countries, until the numbers are their requisite numbers. So I think our strategy is to ensure that everyone signs up. Then it really becomes a success. But it's a great achievement. What I've done in Paris is a great achievement. We've got to ensure sufficient number of countries sign up to meet the criteria put down in the agreement. Sri Lanka is all be establishing a Sustainable Development Council, which has oversight of all sustainable development legislation in action. We are fully committed to it. And we will do our role as far as sustainable development is concerned and climate change. But we would have to see how they react and how many countries signed the agreement. We are hopeful that the quota would be reached. But this is a great achievement. And let's hope we can top it off by getting the requisite numbers. Thank you very much, Mr. Prime Minister. If there are no further questions at the moment, we will close the press conference. Thank you very much, Mr. Prime Minister, for joining us and for sharing your insights. And thank you all for watching and being here. Thank you. Thank you for being with me.