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Sri Lanka
This Week in AsiaEconomics

Sri Lankan business owners left reeling from shortages, power cuts amid spiralling economic crisis

  • The island nation has imposed punishing power outages lasting half a day or more in recent weeks as it runs out of foreign currency to pay for fuel imports
  • A last-minute curfew over the weekend dealt a further blow to restaurants and other businesses struggling with shortages and the pandemic

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A shop in Colombo is seen illuminated by candlelight amid power cuts lasting up to 13 hours a day in Sri Lanka. Photo: EPA-EFE
Dimuthu Attanayake
As Sri Lanka is enveloped by its worst economic crisis in living memory, restaurants and other businesses across the island nation are being pushed to the brink by acute shortages of fuel and other essentials.
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Most of the country’s cabinet – except President Gotabaya Rajapaska and his brother, the prime minister – offered to resign en masse on Sunday night following weeks of street protests against the government’s handling of the crisis. These continued over the weekend despite a 36-hour curfew imposed by Rajapaska on Saturday after large crowds had gathered near the president’s residence.

The energy shortage, triggered by dwindling foreign currency reserves to pay for fuel imports, has caused power outages lasting up to 13 hours per day – further punishing small eateries that had already been hit hard by a shortage of cooking gas since late last year.

People queue to buy cooking gas cylinders at a depot in Colombo on Saturday amid a nationwide fuel shortage. Photo: EPA-EFE
People queue to buy cooking gas cylinders at a depot in Colombo on Saturday amid a nationwide fuel shortage. Photo: EPA-EFE

“We were closed for weeks due to an inability to find gas, and when we finally got hold of gas for a much higher price, we were hit with the power cuts,” said Prash, the owner of Dosai Inc., a small takeaway shop in the north of Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo that until last month served South Indian cuisine.

Previously reliant on the dinnertime trade, Prash, who only gave one name, found it impossible to continue serving customers after his takeaway was beset by constant power outages from 6pm-10pm.

“We had to throw out food on a daily basis. Our only option was to temporarily close down. If the situation doesn’t improve in a few months, we will have to look at giving up the space, and selling the equipment,” Prash said.

‘Last-minute curfew’

About half of Sri Lanka’s restaurants, already badly battered by the pandemic, have been forced to close as a result of the recent shortages and blackouts, said Asela Sampath, president of the All Island Restaurant Owners’s Association.

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