New Sri Lankan government must raise taxes, make difficult reforms: central bank governor

Sri Lanka's new president will have to deal with daunting political challenges and his reforms should include tax rises to stabilise a devastated economy, the central bank governor told the Financial Times on Wednesday, Reuters reports.

"I expect a stable government that can implement difficult economic reforms," Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe told the FT on the morning of Wednesday's parliamentary vote.

Weerasinghe said these would include eradicating wasteful spending, restructuring state-owned enterprises and raising interest rates to tame runaway inflation. He called for a bipartisan approach to implement these reforms.

Later in the day, lawmakers voted in acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe as the new president, hoping his long experience in government would help pull the country out of a crippling economic and political crisis.