Sri Lanka PM says economy extremely precarious |
Sri Lanka`s newly appointed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in his first address to the nation on May 16th said the country has run out of petrol, adding the economy is extremely precarious. The 73-year-old United National Party (UNP) leader who has been appointed interim PM said “We have run out of petrol… At the moment, we only have petrol stocks for a single day”, and explained the island nation is unable to find dollars to finance essential imports. A diesel shipment using an Indian credit line arrived in the country on May 15th but is yet to be distributed across the island. Due to the diesel shipment that arrived yesterday, the lack of diesel will be resolved to some extent in Sri Lanka. Under the Indian credit line, two more diesel shipments are due to arrive on the 18th of May and the 1st of June. In addition, two petrol shipments are expected on 18th and 29th May. A quarter of the electricity in Lanka is generated through oil. Therefore, there is a possibility that the daily power outages will increase to 15 hours a day. However, the Sri Lankan Prime Minister said that they have already obtained money to avert this crisis.
|
|
|
|
|
