{"id":125276,"date":"2022-05-13T10:42:53","date_gmt":"2022-05-13T17:42:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=125276"},"modified":"2022-05-13T10:42:53","modified_gmt":"2022-05-13T17:42:53","slug":"sri-lanka-economy-crisis-to-get-worse-before-it-gets-better-pm-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2022\/05\/13\/sri-lanka-economy-crisis-to-get-worse-before-it-gets-better-pm-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka economy crisis to get worse before it gets better, PM says"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em><strong>By Rajini Vaidyanathan BBC South Asia Correspondent Courtesy BBC<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p><strong>Sri Lanka&#8217;s new prime minister has told the BBC an economic crisis that has brought misery and unrest is &#8220;going to get worse before it gets better&#8221;.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The country is facing fuel shortages and soaring food prices, with some Sri Lankans forced to skip meals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Anger over the government&#8217;s handling of the crisis has led to violent protests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ranil Wickremesinghe was appointed in an attempt to defuse the protests. It is the opposition MP&#8217;s sixth stint as prime minister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-61028138\">Sri Lanka&#8217;s crisis explained<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-59952980\">How the soaring cost of living is hitting Sri Lankans hard<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-asia-61411532\">How Sri Lanka&#8217;s war heroes became villains<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>In his first interview since taking office, Mr Wickremesinghe told the BBC he would ensure families get three meals a day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Appealing to the world for more financial help, he said &#8220;there won&#8217;t be a hunger crisis, we will find food&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The new PM described the Sri Lankan economy as &#8220;broken&#8221;, but he said his message to Sri Lankans was to &#8220;be patient, I will bring things back&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr Wickremesinghe was sworn-in by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Thursday, but his appointment has largely been met with dismay, as he is seen as too close to the politically dominant Rajapaksa family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In his interview, Mr Wickremesinghe said he agreed with the sentiment of protestors who&#8217;ve been calling for President Rajapaksa to resign, but said that would not happen. &#8220;Blaming won&#8217;t lead to action, I&#8217;m here to see people nourished,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But he added that he was &#8220;going to change all the policies of the Rajapaksa government&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He also called on the international community for help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;We need your assistance for a year, whatever we get from you we will repay. Help us to do it. We are the longest and oldest democracy in Asia,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/976\/cpsprodpb\/7E38\/production\/_124721323_mediaitem124721322.jpg\" alt=\"People queue for cooking gas in Sri Lanka\"\/><figcaption>Image caption,Long queues for essentials are now part of daily life in Sri Lanka, for those that can afford them<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Sri Lanka&#8217;s economy is in freefall. Food, medicine and fuel have run out or become unaffordable. Some people have died waiting at petrol stations to fill up their tanks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is the the island nation&#8217;s worst economic crisis since gaining independence from Britain in 1948.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;We don&#8217;t have kerosene, we don&#8217;t have petrol, we don&#8217;t have diesel, we don&#8217;t have cooking gas and we don&#8217;t even have access to wood-fired stoves,&#8221; a 68-year-old woman in the Sri Lankan capital Columbo told AFP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;We are struggling everyday to feed our children. Food prices have tripled in the past few days. How are we supposed to manage?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the heart of Sri Lanka&#8217;s economic woes is that the country is heavily reliant on imports but has been burning through the foreign currency reserves it needs to pay for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The economy suffered in the Covid pandemic and tourism was hit by the 2019 church bombings. But experts have also blamed economic mismanagement too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Rajini Vaidyanathan BBC South Asia Correspondent Courtesy BBC Sri Lanka&#8217;s new prime minister has told the BBC an economic crisis that has brought misery and unrest is &#8220;going to get worse before it gets better&#8221;. The country is facing fuel shortages and soaring food prices, with some Sri Lankans forced to skip meals. Anger [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125276","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=125276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125276\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}