Sri Lanka's Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has said the country's economy has been burdened by the loans taken by the previous government. Speaking at an event in eastern province last evening, the Prime Minister said, if they as a country get buried under loans, they'll become slaves and therefore, they are taking every effort to pay this debt by any means. He said, the previous government took a 1.3 billion US dollars loan from China to build the Hambantota Port and the government has paid back 200 million US dollars with difficulty.<br/><br/>Mr. Wickremesinghe explained that when the Chinese President visited Sri Lanka in 2014, the Rajapaksa government signed an agreement to hand over Hambantota Port to two Chinese companies but it was disadvantageous to the country. The Prime Minister said, since it is not profitable to pay the Hambantota Port's loan from the income of the Colombo Port, the government had discussions with China and agreed to lease the port to a joint Chinese and Sri Lankan company to pay off the debt in full.