Sri Lanka's new president, Ranil Wickremesinghe, has formally invited members of parliament to join the government to revive the bankrupt economy through painful reforms, AFP reported, citing the president's office.

Wickremesinghe took office in early July after public anger over the country's worst economic crisis forced his predecessor, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, to flee the country and resign.

At a meeting on Saturday with influential monks at the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy, one of the shrines of Buddhism, Wickremesinghe outlined his plans.

He asked all legislators to join the unity government.

Wickremesinghe said the country's economy will shrink further this year to 7 percent, but expects a recovery next year.

Wickremesinghe, 73, a former opposition member of parliament, took over as prime minister for the sixth time in May after Rajapaksa's older brother Mahinda Rajapaksa resigned and there were no other contenders for the job.

Sri Lanka's population of 22 million has endured months of prolonged power outages, record inflation and shortages of food, fuel and medicine.

Since the end of last year, the country has run out of foreign currency to finance even the most essential imports.

In April, Sri Lanka defaulted on its $51 billion foreign debt and began negotiations with the International Monetary Fund to save the country.