Sri Lanka: Life after an economic crisis

Business Daily

BBC

Business

4.4 • 816 Ratings

🗓️ 27 October 2022

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In April 2022, Sri Lanka was gripped by a major economic crisis. Prices were rising sharply, protests started in the capital, Colombo,and spread across the country.

Daily power cuts and shortages of basics such as fuel, food and medicines were commonplace.

Inflation was running at more than 50%.

In July, after months of unrest, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country.

Three months on, Rahul Tandon asks whether Sri Lanka's economic situation has improved, and explores how the country could improve its fortunes - when everyone wants to leave.

Rahul hears from people in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo, where there are queues for the passport office, a Colombo business owner, and a Sri Lankan academic now living in the UK who says she's not going back.

Presented and produced by Rahul Tandon.

(Image: Sri Lankan tea seller in the rain. Credit: Getty)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi there. I'm Namulanta Combo and I'm the host of another BBC World Service podcast called Dear Daughter.
0:09.1	Maybe you've listened to our first season or maybe you heard about us a few months ago when we won best podcast of the year at the British Podcast Awards.
0:18.2	I am so excited to tell you we are coming back for our second season, but I need
0:23.1	your help. I'll be back to tell you more after this episode.
0:30.6	Hello and welcome to Business Daily here on the BBC World Service. I'm Rahul Tand, thanks so
0:36.7	much for joining us.
0:37.9	Today we're heading to Sri Lanka. It's now more than three months since President Gortabaya
0:42.6	Rajapaksa was thrown out of office. But is the economic situation in the country any better?
0:49.4	We will live in hope, but die in despair. It's not better. I can't see how it can get better.
0:55.7	And how is Sri Lanka going to grow economically if so many people now want to leave?
1:01.5	Nowadays, all of them are trying to leave the country.
1:05.0	They will live at one point of their life, so maybe this year or next year soon.
1:10.0	Coming up on Business Daily, we're taking a close look at the state of the Sri Lankan economy.
1:18.6	Go-go! Go-go! Go-go! Go-go! Go-go! Go-go! Go-go! Go-go! Go-go!
1:27.4	I'm sure that many of you, like me, remember those sounds.
1:31.7	We heard them a lot here, didn't we, on the BBC World Service,
1:35.1	thousands of Sri Lankans taking to the streets,
1:38.8	telling President Gottemaya Rajapaksa to go and leave office.
1:45.5	Sri Lanka had been one of the economic success stories of Asia, but under his leadership,
1:51.3	it was now bankrupt. Let's just remind ourselves of how bad the economic situation was.
1:57.6	I'm 89 years old, and for the last so many 89 years I have not gone through this misery.
2:06.6	Every time in the night when the lights go off, I cry.
	...

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