Anbarasan Ethirajan reports Sri Lanka correspondent

In an (email) interview with the BBC, the Sri Lankan Central Bank Governor, Ajith Nivard Cabraal, said the money would also be used for post-war reconstruction of northern and eastern provinces.

Sri Lanka has become the second country after Pakistan in South Asia to approach the IMF for financial help in recent months.

Sri Lanka's economy is under pressure. It's top revenue earning industries like garments, tea and tourism have been hit hard by the global financial crisis.

Many factories have been shut down and thousands have lost jobs in recent months.

In addition, its foreign exchange reserves have dropped by half in the last four months of two-thousand-and-eight - enough to pay for a few weeks of imports.

With its new initiatives failing to bring in more foreign investments, the government has now been forced to approach the IMF.

The government wants to borrow about one-point-nine billion dollars from the IMF and the talks are expected to conclude later this month.

The Central Bank Governor, Ajith Nivard Cabraal told the BBC that he did not expect the IMF's conditions to be contrary to the government's present policy framework.

Mr Cabraal said the IMF loan would also be used to rebuild war-affected areas in the northern and eastern provinces.

The government also needs massive financial help from donor countries to undertake post-war reconstruction.

But the war is not yet over and the Sri Lankan military is still battling Tamil Tigers in the north-east. Sri Lanka's more than two-decades-old separatist conflict may end soon, but its battle to bring the economy back on track has just begun.