Two prominent Sri Lankan newspapers are stopping print editions due to a shortage of paper, the latest fatalities in the island nation’s economic crisis. After its foreign reserves plummeted, the 22-million-strong South Asian country is experiencing its most significant financial meltdown since gaining independence from Britain in 1948. As economy of Sri Lanka getting worsen day by day, Sri Lankan Newsprint Stopped due to paper shortage.
Privately owned Upali Newspapers said that their English-language daily, The Island, and its sister Sinhalese version, Divaina, will only be available online in view of the prevailing newsprint shortage. Other major national newspapers have also cut pages since expenses have risen by more than a third in the last five months and issues obtaining supplies from outside.
Last week, approximately three million of Sri Lanka’s 4.5 million students had their school assessments postponed indefinitely due to a lack of paper and ink. In addition, the dollar scarcity has resulted in energy shortages affecting all sectors and surging prices, with inflation reaching a five-month high of 17.5 percent in February.
Automobilists must queue at gas stations, and at least four individuals have died in the last week while waiting for long periods to fill up. Officials from the Energy Ministry said they could raise $42 million to pay for a cargo of diesel and aviation gasoline stuck at the Colombo port for over two weeks due to a lack of dollars.
The government allowed the rupee to weaken earlier this month and declared that it would seek an IMF rescue to restructure its foreign debt. This year, Sri Lanka would need about $7 billion to service its external debt, but its foreign reserves had fallen to $2.3 billion, down from $7.5 billion when the present government took power in November 2019.
To get out of its currency problem, the island is looking for further loans from India, China, and other countries. When the pandemic struck, Sri Lanka was in the midst of a profound economic crisis, with foreign worker remittances plummeting and the lucrative tourism sector, a major source of revenue, crippled.
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