COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s food prices rose by a record 22.1 per cent in December, official figures showed on Saturday, as the country struggles to finance urgent imports to tackle an acute shortage of essentials. The census and statistics department said food inflation hit an all-time high last month on a year-on-year basis since the Colombo Consumer … Read more
COLOMBO: International ratings agency Fitch downgraded cash-strapped Sri Lanka on Saturday by one notch to ‘CC’ due to mounting fears of a sovereign default on its $26 billion foreign debt. The downgrade came a day after Sri Lanka reported a 1.5 per cent contraction in the third quarter of this year, as a foreign exchange crisis … Read more
COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s economy shrank in the third quarter as a foreign exchange crisis wrecked its recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, official data showed on Thursday. The GDP contracted 1.5 per cent on-year in the three months to September, the department of census and statistics said, ending four consecutive quarters of growth. The island’s tourism-dependent economy … Read more
