Sri Lanka to downsize its army

Sri Lanka will downsize army after financial crisis

Colombo, The Gulf Observer: Sri Lanka will downsize its army to 135,000 personnel by next year and to 100,000 by 2030, the state minister of defence has said, as the country tries to cut costs in the face of its worst economic crisis in more than seven decades.

“Military spending is basically state-borne expenditure which indirectly stimulates and opens avenues for economic growth by way of assuring national and human security,” Premitha Bandara Thennakoon, said in a statement on Friday.

The island nation is still reeling from months of food and fuel shortages that made daily life a misery for its 22 million people last year.

Sri Lanka announced the plan to downsize military by half by 2030

President Ranil Wickremesinghe has hiked taxes and imposed harsh spending cuts to smooth the passage of an expected International Monetary Fund bailout following a government debt default.

Sri Lanka’s armed forces are next on the chopping block, with the defence ministry announcing it would retire 65,000 soldiers from its 200,000-strong army over the year.

The cuts make up the lion’s share of plans to downsize Sri Lanka’s land forces to 100,000 by the end of the decade.