Sri Lanka is struggling to cope with a debilitating economic crisis with inflation soaring, food and fuel shortages daily power cuts and fears of a sovereign default looming on the horizon. The people take to the streets to protest daily about poor government and corruption and want the Rajapaksa family, which has ruled on and off for decades,to resign. In the background China has invested $1.4 billion to help PCC reclaim 269 hectares of land on the Indian Ocean. In exchange, China has got about 116 hectares of the land there on a 99-year lease, seems like a good deal. The money troubles came to a head with the Covid virus destroying the tourism sector which they relied on so very much.

https://theprint.in/diplomacy/crisis-hi ... st/883643/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-61381536

The country needs to turn around to be sure but how?

Developing further infrastructure to support the tourist industry would help. I'm not saying to cut huge swaths with superhighways, but improving the rail and road links between Colombo and major tourist centers would help. Obviously, the security issues after the Colombo bombings are also a concern for some. Obviously, corruption should be rooted out.

The problems with foods and fuels are glibal it just happen that Sri Lanka is among the weakest state in the world economically nowadays which cause they are now most affected by this.
Short term it can only ask for aids, but other countries in the region are also facing different problems, economic or otherwise, to different extents that can barely helps, and international humanitarian organizations with their limited resources also probably wouldn't have enough resources to deal with such energy and fuel supply problems spanning from Latin America to Africa to Asia in addition to ongoing wars and conflicts in various parts of the world.
Long term, whike the tourism sector will probably recover, they must polish their economic system themselves to improve from.the situation. Unlike Greece in 2008, there are nothing like European Union that are enthusiastically working to save the country from crisis. But also unlike Greece in 2008, currency devaluation and default are more realistic path that the country could opt for if all other means failed, even though it would have long term negative consequences on the country's economic future, but that consequence need to weight against cost.

Isn't one big issue that they tried to go to all organic agriculture and it went badly wrong ?

Sri Lankan security forces have been ordered to shoot law-breakers on sight in a bid to quell anti-government protests on the island.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-61389189

This is not going to end well.

Aesma wrote:

Isn't one big issue that they tried to go to all organic agriculture and it went badly wrong ?

Yes it certainly did.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/03/05/sr ... ng-crisis/

readytotaxi wrote:

Sri Lankan security forces have been ordered to shoot law-breakers on sight in a bid to quell anti-government protests on the island.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-61389189

This is not going to end well.

One Belt, One Road.

How bad is corruption in Sri Lanka? Always got the impression that it was one of the better run countries in South Asia. Never been there and fully open to being convinced otherwise.

N1120A wrote:

Developing further infrastructure to support the tourist industry would help. I'm not saying to cut huge swaths with superhighways, but improving the rail and road links between Colombo and major tourist centers would help. Obviously, the security issues after the Colombo bombings are also a concern for some. Obviously, corruption should be rooted out.

Yes take more Chinese loans and get more trapped in a vicious cycle. I give Nepal and Pakistan a year before landing into the same trouble. Building infrastructure is not a best way to develop, unless you have the demand for it. Build and people will come is what landed them in trouble in the first place.

Look at Bangladesh, they are the model state in South Asia now. They focused on creating sustainable employment opportunities rather than some white elephant infra projects.

sibibom wrote:

N1120A wrote:

Developing further infrastructure to support the tourist industry would help. I'm not saying to cut huge swaths with superhighways, but improving the rail and road links between Colombo and major tourist centers would help. Obviously, the security issues after the Colombo bombings are also a concern for some. Obviously, corruption should be rooted out.

Yes take more Chinese loans and get more trapped in a vicious cycle. I give Nepal and Pakistan a year before landing into the same trouble. Building infrastructure is not a best way to develop, unless you have the demand for it. Build and people will come is what landed them in trouble in the first place.

Look at Bangladesh, they are the model state in South Asia now. They focused on creating sustainable employment opportunities rather than some white elephant infra projects.

Bangladesh benefits massively from remittances, something long known.

Connecting people to where they want to go isn't a white elephant. They need to look to investment from other sources than China.

N1120A wrote:

sibibom wrote:

N1120A wrote:

Developing further infrastructure to support the tourist industry would help. I'm not saying to cut huge swaths with superhighways, but improving the rail and road links between Colombo and major tourist centers would help. Obviously, the security issues after the Colombo bombings are also a concern for some. Obviously, corruption should be rooted out.

Yes take more Chinese loans and get more trapped in a vicious cycle. I give Nepal and Pakistan a year before landing into the same trouble. Building infrastructure is not a best way to develop, unless you have the demand for it. Build and people will come is what landed them in trouble in the first place.

Look at Bangladesh, they are the model state in South Asia now. They focused on creating sustainable employment opportunities rather than some white elephant infra projects.

Bangladesh benefits massively from remittances, something long known.

Connecting people to where they want to go isn't a white elephant. They need to look to investment from other sources than China.

Sri Lanka has a remittances as well. And according to world bank, more as a percentage to GDP than Bangladesh (https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BX ... desc=false)

"Connecting people to where they want to go isn't a white elephant", probably, but scale also matters, look at Hambantota port, the Rajapaksa Airport, the Colombo Port City project, elevated Colombo highway project. Some projects are far too big for the countries needs for now and even decades later.

They need to look to investment from other sources than China - Yes but no one else will fund projects that aren't viable commercially. Many countries in Africa and Asia have fallen into the Chinese debt trap, Sri Lanka is just the start, many others will follow sadly.