President Ranil Wickremesinghe on Thursday said Sri Lanka’s progress was hindered by the decades-long ethnic conflict involving the Tamil minority and underlined that the debt-trapped country should not miss its "last chance" to make a "decisive choice" and achieve prosperity.

Sri Lanka has been hit hard by a catastrophic economic and humanitarian crisis, sparked by years of mismanagement and the raging pandemic.

In a keynote address "Economic Dialogue - IMF and Beyond," Wickremesinghe said it is essential to look beyond the IMF programme and focus on creating a prosperous society for the next generation.

“Our task is not merely to stabilise the economy but to ensure growth, to grow in this new global economy, and to go ahead. These are facts that we can't get away from," Wickremesinghe said.

The Sri Lankan President said the country’s progress was hindered by ethnic issues, and added that if the country is to prosper, this issue must be resolved.

"Sri Lanka has missed an opportunity to regain its footing due to the ethnic crisis. This is the last chance for Sri Lanka to make a decisive choice and move forward, or risk falling back again," he asserted.

Wickremesinghe, also the finance minister, said the country's economic growth was hampered since the 1970s due to the ethnic conflict involving the Tamil minority.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) waged a war for more than two decades with the Sri Lankan government to carve out a separate Tamil homeland with the conflict ending in 2009 when the government forces killed its chief Velupillai Prabhakaran.

According to the Lankan government figures, over 20,000 people are missing due to various conflicts including the three-decade brutal war with Lankan Tamils in the north and east, which claimed at least 100,000 lives.

President Wickremesinghe has previously ruled out that there will be no division of the country, contrary to fears expressed by sections of the Buddhist clergy.

Sinhalese, mostly Buddhist, make up nearly 75 per cent of Sri Lanka’s 22 million population, while Tamils are 15 per cent.

The majority hardline Buddhist clergy has been thwarting attempts for reconciliation with the Tamil minority since 1948 when the country gained its independence from Britain.

Earlier this month, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved a USD 3 billion bailout programme to help Sri Lanka overcome its economic crisis and catalyse financial support from other development partners, a move welcomed by Colombo as a "historic milestone" in the critical period.

Last week, Sri Lanka received USD 330 million as the first tranche of the IMF bailout programme, which will pave the way for the country to achieve better "fiscal discipline" and "improved governance," according to President Wickremesinghe.

In April 2022, Sri Lanka declared its first-ever debt default in its history.

Sri Lanka was hit by an unprecedented financial crisis in 2022, the worst since its independence from Britain in 1948, due to a severe paucity of foreign exchange reserves, sparking political turmoil in the country that led to the ouster of the all-powerful Rajapaksa family.

Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Telegraph Online staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.