Sri Lankan economy facing short-term challenges from COVID-19
Posted on March 13th, 2020

By Shiran Illanperuma Xinhua

The island nation is facing the temporary loss of markets in the US and Europe, says Atchuthan Srirangan of First Capital Holdings

COLOMBO, March 13 (Xinhua) — The Sri Lankan economy may experience external shocks due to the COVID-19 outbreak, with tourism, garment manufacturing, and tea exports to be the hardest hit, a local expert said here Friday.

Atchuthan Srirangan, Assistant Manager – Research for Investments at investment management company First Capital Holdings, said that the Colombo Stock Exchange this week had dropped at a similar pace as foreign markets, partially fueled by fears caused by COVID-19.

These external shocks are reflected in the Sri Lankan market. We have been seeing foreign sell-offs the whole year in companies related to tourism, garments, and banks,” Srirangan said.

Sri Lanka’s tourism sector and garment exports would face challenges due to their reliance on western markets, and reduction of demand in Europe and North America, Srirangan said.

Travel restrictions have put the tourism sector’s earnings on a downward trend, therefore the stock price of some major companies may see a drop,” Srirangan said.

The bright side for the tourism sector is that the off-season begins this month, so the worse damage should be behind us,” he added.

Sri Lanka’s tea exports may also face challenges due to the reduction of global oil prices which may reduce the foreign currency earning of major Sri Lankan tea importers in the Middle East, Srirangan said.

On a positive note, Srirangan assessed that China is on track to make a full economic recovery, providing space for other countries to follow suit.

Countries such as China and Singapore took swift action which may have had short-term economic impacts but allowed swift recovery,” Srirangan said.

Sri Lanka’s decision to temporarily close schools and quarantine visitors coming from COVID-19 affected countries will hopefully have a positive effect,” he added.

One Response to “Sri Lankan economy facing short-term challenges from COVID-19”

  1. Ancient Sinhalaya Says:

    Root cause of all the ills the world facing today is due to population explosion. When food is in short supply people
    start eating all sort of things. Food producers/manufacturers take short cuts to make profits swell. Prime example
    is farmer adding antibiotics to animal feed so they go without incurring vet bills to the two legged creatures belly saving millions for farmers. When two legged creatures eat these antibiotics fed animals, humans gets all sorts of diseases which antibiotics can’t cure.

    Few decades ago people never heard these viruses because the world was a sparsely populated place. Today? It’s
    bursting at the seems with billions of people. These billions need a lot of resources. It’s not just that, they create a
    lot of rubbish too. It’s a lose, lose situation for the planet and now the nature striking back. This Covid-19 could kill
    millions, who knows to control population. Remember world wars was a mechanism to control population by killing
    millions. It’s time these corrupt deshapaluwas the world over pause for a moment and take action before too late.

    Meanwhile two legged creatures can do their bit to ease the burden for the mother nature.
    *Stop multiplying to take over countries, like the SLMC aka Sri Lanka Multiplying Community mussies doing all
    over the world. Can someone tell these creafty, two faced lebbes to have maximum two children. Lebbes are responsible for at least swelling the world population by one billion, may be much more.

    *Stop eating meat since livestocks create a lot green house gases plus forests are being cleared to rear them.
    After all two legged creatures’ distant relative chimp isn’t a meat eater. Even just looking at your teeth will tell you what sort of food you should be eating (it’s different from cat’s, dog’s). This is all The Buddha explained to the two
    legged creatures over 2,500 years ago. Animals have diseases too and since they don’t have doctors, hospitals
    they pass on those to two legged creatures (their revenge).
    *stop buying plastic wrapped food whenever you can. Manufacturers will straight away change when they see
    people don’t buy their stuff.

    Worst creatures on this planet are two legged creatures as most honest people see. The deshapaluwas in Sri
    Lanka like the Batalande wa(n)dakaya, vairapala sorry sena, mongol pongol, milk dog, parajithaya, bada udin,
    a sad ali (not enough children to be sad?), hisballa aka empty dog, A K de Lapaya, pig the pigneshwaran,
    church acolyte sumanthira, champakaya etc. etc. too many to mention. When you have so many people like that
    all over the world, is there any wonder the mother nature striking back? If the world overcome Covid-19, there
    will be another one waiting in the wings to kill even more. Two legged creatures change or perish. The Buddha
    preached how to live properly over 2,500 years ago. If you don’t believe it, just look at Buddhism’s Five Precepts
    which is used as the penal code in every country under the sun. Then Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, earth’s size
    in the vast vast vast vast universe all that The Buddha explained over 2,500 years ago. But today’s money-ruling
    world true religion isn’t a religion, instead people still believe in mythical gods who were buried by science several
    centuries ago.

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