{"id":1409806,"date":"2022-03-30T10:45:53","date_gmt":"2022-03-30T14:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1409806"},"modified":"2022-03-30T10:46:01","modified_gmt":"2022-03-30T14:46:01","slug":"sri-lanka-suffers-long-power-cuts-as-currency-shortage-makes-fuel-scarce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/sri-lanka-suffers-long-power-cuts-as-currency-shortage-makes-fuel-scarce\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka suffers long power cuts as currency shortage makes fuel scarce"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fsri-lanka-suffers-long-power-cuts-as-currency-shortage-makes-fuel-scarce%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1409806&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/2022-03-30T125155Z_1_LYNXNPEI2T0PR_RTROPTP_0_SRI-LANKA-CRISIS-GAS_1.jpg\" alt=\"FILE PHOTO: Two gas companies in Sri Lanka have suspended supplies as the country grapples with a severe foreign currency shortage\" \/><br \/>FILE PHOTO: A staff waits for food to be ready to serve a customer during a power outage after two main gas companies have suspended supplies as the country grapples with a severe foreign currency shortage, in Colombo, Sri Lanka  March 7, 2022. REUTERS\/Dinuka Liyanawatte\/File Photo<\/div>\n<p>March 30, 2022<\/p>\n<p>By Uditha Jayasinghe<\/p>\n<p>COLOMBO (Reuters) \u2013     Businesses and households in Sri Lanka faced 10-hour-long power cuts on Wednesday as a deepening economic crisis roiled markets and the electricity regulator urged over a million government employees to work from home to save on fuel.<\/p>\n<p>The island nation has been unable to pay for fuel shipments because of a foreign exchange shortage, and is poised to seek assistance from the International Monetary Fund, having slid into its worst economic crisis in decades.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe made a request to the government to allow the public sector, which is about 1.3 million employees, to work from home for the next two days so we can manage the fuel and power shortages better,\u201d Janaka Ratnayake, Chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka, told Reuters.<\/p>\n<p>Foreign exchange reserves have fallen by 70% in the past two years and were down to a paltry $2.31 billion as of February, leaving Sri Lanka struggling to import essentials, including food and fuel.<\/p>\n<p>The drawn-out power cuts on Wednesday were partly caused by the government\u2019s inability to pay $52 million for a 37,000 tonne diesel shipment that is awaiting offloading, Ratnayake said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have no forex to pay,\u201d he said, warning of more power cuts over the next two days. \u201cThat is the reality.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2018CAN\u2019T SEE END OF TUNNEL\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Sri Lankan shares closed 3.6% down on Wednesday, after falling more than 7% during the day, prompting the Colombo Stock Exchange to halt trading twice.<\/p>\n<p>Udeeshan Jonas, Chief Strategist at equity research firm CAL Research, said the market was responding to a deepening of a crisis set off by badly-timed tax cuts, the coronavirus pandemic and historically weak government finances.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInvestors can\u2019t see the end of the tunnel,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>To seek a way out of the crisis, Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa is set to visit Washington in April for talks with the IMF. The Fund\u2019s assessment published on Friday said Sri Lanka was experiencing a combined balance of payments and sovereign debt crisis, and would need a \u201ccomprehensive strategy\u201d to make its debt sustainable.<\/p>\n<p>If Sri Lanka secures an IMF programme it would be its 17th financial rescue package from the global lender.<\/p>\n<p>Harpo Gooneratne, a restaurateur in Sri Lanka\u2019s main city of Colombo, said that even though some of his 10 restaurants had their own generators, the diesel shortage made it difficult to run his business during power cuts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIts crazy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The worsening electricity cuts will hit already struggling businesses, especially exporters that have locked in orders and limited capacity to absorb cost increases, said Dhananath Fernando, an analyst at Colombo\u2019s Advocata Institute think tank.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis will further hurt Sri Lanka\u2019s growth and threaten foreign exchange earnings that are crucial to improve reserves, repay debt and pay for essential imports,\u201d Fernando said.<\/p>\n<p>Gooneratne said there were 30% fewer customers at his restaurants and they were spending less.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEven when people go out they are cautious about their spending,\u201d he said. \u201cThe person who earlier had two beers will now only have one.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> (Writing by Devjyot Ghoshal; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Tomasz Janowski)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FILE PHOTO: A staff waits for food to be ready to serve a customer during a power outage after two main gas companies have suspended supplies as the country grapples<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":287,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1409806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1409806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/287"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1409806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1409806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1409806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1409806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1409806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}