COLOMBO (Reuters) – Sri Lanka will receive a loan of $1 billion (£776 million) from Bank of China <601988.SS> before the end of the March quarter, the chief of the central bank said on Thursday, to help the country meet repayments in the coming months.

“We will get the $300 million before end of this month and upsize it to $1 billion. The whole loan will be taken in the first quarter,” Indrajit Coomaraswamy told Reuters.

Sri Lanka is struggling to repay its foreign loans, with a record $5.9 billion due this year including $2.6 billion in the first three months alone.

Coomaraswamy said the interest rate for the $300 million loan is around 5.5 percent. “This is a sovereign loan and does not require any collateral.” Details of the loan have not been previously released.

(Reporting by Shihar Aneez; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)