Sri Lanka is facing shortage of foreign exchange and consequently has decided to restrict fuel imports. This restriction is meant for 12 months. The energy minister of the nation informed about this on Monday. The new government of the Island nation is trying to find its way out of a collapsing economic crisis.
The nation is facing lack of essentials that includes fuel and medicines for months. This happened after its foreign exchange reserves dried because of mismanagement of economy and the impact of Covid-19 pandemic.
Kanchana Wijesekera, minister of Power and Energy of the nation, stated in a tweet that due to forex issues, fuel imports has to be restricted for the next 12 months. A fuel rationing system will be implemented this week.
The rationing system is one of the first step that the newly formed Preseident, Ranil Wickremesinghe is trying to execute. This will be an effort to ease the impact of the crisis after taking office last week by the president.
Schools in Sri Lanka were reopened on Monday. Fuel shortage and political unrest kept the educational institutions closed for quite a long duration.
However, public sector employees have been advised to continue working from home for another month. The government mentioned this in a circular issued on Sunday.
Manoj Gupta, the managing director of the Lanka IOC mentioned that it will import two fuel shipments of around 30,000 tonnes each in August. Lanka IOC is the country’s second largest fuel retailer.
