{"id":122971,"date":"2022-02-22T17:29:19","date_gmt":"2022-02-23T00:29:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=122971"},"modified":"2022-02-22T17:29:19","modified_gmt":"2022-02-23T00:29:19","slug":"sri-lanka-inflation-hits-record-high-as-crisis-worsens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2022\/02\/22\/sri-lanka-inflation-hits-record-high-as-crisis-worsens\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka inflation hits record high as crisis worsens"},"content":{"rendered":"

Courtesy The Digital Journal<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Sri Lanka\u2019s inflation hit a record high for the fourth consecutive month, official data showed Tuesday as an economic crisis driven by a crippling foreign exchange shortage worsens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The National Consumer Price Index (NCPI) rose 16.8 percent in January from a year earlier, the fourth consecutive record rise and more than double October\u2019s figure of 8.3 percent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The record highs came as the South Asian island struggles to find dollars to finance essential imports, including food, fuel and medicines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The energy ministry announced Monday it was struggling to buy fuel on credit and reported shortages at many pumping stations, leading to queues and forcing some to shut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ministry said the main state-owned oil company, the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, was straddled with outstanding debt of $3.5 billion and was no longer able to raise new commercial loans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the CPC is banking on a proposed credit line of $500 million from the Indian government to procure oil in the coming months, officials said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The worsening economic crisis has already led to food rationing with supermarkets restricting the quantity of rice, milk powder, sugar, lentils and tinned fish sold to consumers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many pumping stations have also rationed fuel issued to motorists in the provinces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka\u2019s economy has collapsed since the onset of the pandemic, with a nosedive in tourism revenue as well as foreign worker remittances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

International rating agencies have downgraded Sri Lanka over expectations it may not be able to service its $35 billion foreign debt. The government insists it can meet its obligations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Courtesy The Digital Journal Sri Lanka\u2019s inflation hit a record high for the fourth consecutive month, official data showed Tuesday as an economic crisis driven by a crippling foreign exchange shortage worsens. The National Consumer Price Index (NCPI) rose 16.8 percent in January from a year earlier, the fourth consecutive record rise and more than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-122971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122971\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}