MUMBAI: Sri Lanka’s President Ranil Wickremesinghe discussed restructuring of the country’s debt with the Chinese finance minister, the president’s office said in a statement on Sunday.

The president is optimistic that discussions will end successfully, it said in the statement. China is Sri Lanka’s largest bilateral lender.

Sri Lanka, home to a population of 22 million, is facing its worst economic crisis in more than seven decades and is renegotiating around $30 billion of foreign debt with bilateral creditors such as China, Japan and India.