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Sri Lankan economic crisis


Trichromatic

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Sri Lanka’s dire economic conditions, sparked by the covid-19 pandemic, are pushing its citizens off the cliff, forcing them to flee to Indian shores clandestinely to escape food shortages.

 

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In 2020, the pandemic skewered tourism, one of Sri Lanka’s main foreign exchange-earners. This led to a dollar crisis in the Emerald Island.

Sri Lanka is heavily dependent on imports of essential items such as petroleum, food, paper, sugar, lentils, medicines, and transportation equipment. With the Central Bank of Sri Lanka’s foreign exchange reserves dwindling to around $2.3 billion (17,536 crore rupees) now—nearly half of what it was a year ago—the country has barely any money to pay for these imports or to service its external debt.

Sri Lanka’s dollar-denominated debt repayments due this year amount to more than $6 billion, including a sovereign bond of $1 billion maturing in July.

 

 

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The government has had to cancel school examinations scheduled over the past weekend due to an acute shortage of printing paper. Its only fuel refinery ran out of crude oil in November 2021. Nearly 1,000 bakeries across the country shut down due to the unavailability of cooking gas—some shifted to kerosene, Reuters reported.

Consumer prices have risen by 15% in February, the fastest among 13 Asian economies.

 

 

https://qz.com/india/2145690/sri-lankas-economic-misery-is-forcing-an-exodus-to-indian-soil/

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Was just reading up about it, foreign inflow of funds fell to a trickle after the Pandemic in early 2020. Both tourist dollars as well as remittances from migrant population took a steep dip and fell for two years straight. Add to this stiff terms of repayment that the Pro-Chinese Rajapaksa happily negotiated with China for all the loans it has taken - and is still taking - and the country is on its knees. And to make matters even worse China is continuing to collect its dues no matter what.

 

Sri Lanka is about to discover the "belt" aspect of the Belt and Road Initiative.

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Army deployed at petrol pumps, padosi mulk ka baap :afraid:

 

What are the key reasons ? 

 

Pandemic => tourism hit

 

Forceful conversion to organic food, hence lack of production

 

Global inflation (oil & otherwise) due to supply chain and war etc 

 

Xi bhai ki vasooli

 

Is populism really a major contributor ? 

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On 3/27/2022 at 3:09 PM, Clarke said:

Army deployed at petrol pumps, padosi mulk ka baap :afraid:

 

What are the key reasons ? 

 

Pandemic => tourism hit

 

Forceful conversion to organic food, hence lack of production

 

Global inflation (oil & otherwise) due to supply chain and war etc 

 

Xi bhai ki vasooli

 

Is populism really a major contributor 

It is due lack of  financial  planning, investing  on useles project and populism

 

It kind of started when they started getting funding they wasted in like an airport which nobody  used and huge loss and then in 2019 tax cut which decreased  revenues  then 2019 bombing  followed by covid  and organic farming just meant the collapse 

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Rajapakse family is corrupt to the core. They rode in on Buddhist populism. They have looted the country in the name of taking loans and will soon disappear to lead comfy lives in the US. Half their family are US citizens. Not sure how the country can allow those who don't have singular citizenship to run for office. 

 

SL is effed. China takeover imminent. They have planned this well. Apparently from Trincomalee to Hambantota the Chinese have settled there and have families with local lankans. Not sure how they can get out of this mess. China is not willing to restructure loans and they have close to 0 money to pay for essential imports - let alone pay loans. 

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5 hours ago, bharathh said:

Rajapakse family is corrupt to the core. They rode in on Buddhist populism. They have looted the country in the name of taking loans and will soon disappear to lead comfy lives in the US. Half their family are US citizens. Not sure how the country can allow those who don't have singular citizenship to run for office. 

 

SL is effed. China takeover imminent. They have planned this well. Apparently from Trincomalee to Hambantota the Chinese have settled there and have families with local lankans. Not sure how they can get out of this mess. China is not willing to restructure loans and they have close to 0 money to pay for essential imports - let alone pay loans. 

People could be Chewtiya to vote for a family run party but politician isnt? Families just loot and leave. Sooner or later, Ruling the country turns into business for them.

 

This is true globally.

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On 3/27/2022 at 1:38 AM, ravishingravi said:

Another major reason was this stupid tilt to organic farming. 

From a production standpoint, organic farming  is one of the biggest scams perpetrated on people.  It is a great niche for ideological eaters, but its low-yielding, unscientific, less sustainable paradigm will keep it where it is - a niche food production method good mainly for virtue-signaling and not much more.   

 

This is a twitter thread from an ag economist on why the move to organic farming doomed SL agriculture.  #9 onwards talks about the SL organic fiasco

 

https://t.co/sYXOBTjshs

 

Edited by BacktoCricaddict
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7 hours ago, BacktoCricaddict said:

From a production standpoint, organic farming  is one of the biggest scams perpetrated on people.  It is a great niche for ideological eaters, but its low-yielding, unscientific, less sustainable paradigm will keep it where it is - a niche food production method good mainly for virtue-signaling and not much more.   

 

This is a twitter thread from an ag economist on why the move to organic farming doomed SL agriculture.  #9 onwards talks about the SL organic fiasco

 

https://t.co/sYXOBTjshs

 

The link completely avoids mentioning the huge outflows SL has in paying back Chinese loans for white elephant projects. This IMO is the major reason for their lack of forex reserves. The amount they saved from not importing fertilizers would more than offset the amount they needed to import food IMO. The organic farming has led to revenue losses for farmers and lack of food - not a major reason for the collapse of the economy as claimed in that article.

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15 hours ago, bharathh said:

The link completely avoids mentioning the huge outflows SL has in paying back Chinese loans for white elephant projects. This IMO is the major reason for their lack of forex reserves. The amount they saved from not importing fertilizers would more than offset the amount they needed to import food IMO. The organic farming has led to revenue losses for farmers and lack of food - not a major reason for the collapse of the economy as claimed in that article.

It's a twitter thread from an agricultural economist, hence the focus on the impacts of the organic mandate/fertilizer ban on food production, and by extension, the overall economy.  His first few tweets were acknowledging the GDP slide even prior to the organic ag mandate. 

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