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Sri Lankans can probably answer this but Sri Lanka is in a vicious cycle - Covid-19 devastated tourism, which reduced the foreign currency reserves, which weake
by blueblisters 5y ago
Sri Lankans can probably answer this but Sri Lanka is in a vicious cycle - Covid-19 devastated tourism, which reduced the foreign currency reserves, which weakened the Sri Lankan Rupee, which made imports costly for an island that depends on imports for many basic necessities. This combined with harebrained policies of the President have put Sri Lanka, one of the richest countries (by per capita GDP) in the Indian subcontinent onto a path of economic devastation.
- iovrthoughtthis 5y agoI would assume they import fuel so this makes sense too.
- Ayesh 5y agoThe vicious cycle is true (source: Sri Lankan, but not actively living there). The current president isn't the only one to blame, though. For the past 15 or so years, the government relied more and more on China to basically keep its wheels moving at the comfort of endless projects funded by China. Sri Lanka used to manufacture a lot of things such as tyre, sugar, paper, etc. The over reliance on imported goods didn't play out well, and things such as tyre, sugar, and paper are now at a shortage because the government simply didn't bother to improve the local manufacturing of said goods.
- tomrod 5y agoWithout intending to start a debate: we see something similar occurring in Venezuela due to a choice to focus on oil production a few years (decade?) back instead balancing food and oil production. There may well be something to institutional economics and the notion of a holon.
- imtringued 5y agoThat's the resource curse at play. I do want to believe that Sri Lanka was just a tiny bit more diversified than Venezuela.