Sri Lanka Chinese: The moment of collapse

Economic Observation Network reporter Wang Yajie, Sri Lanka, July 8th, local time, a gas station less than 10 kilometers away from Wang Zhixing, because someone cut in in line, triggered a group fighting incident, and one person died in the incident.

One day later, when Wang Zhixing, who was in Sri Lanka Coronapo, heard that the incident just happened, his car had not added oil for a month.

On July 5th, local time, Sri Lanka Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said in Congress that Sri Lanka had "bankruptcy" and a large -scale parade in the Sri Lanka capital on July 9th. Occupy the Presidential House, Presidential Office and the Prime Minister's House.

After several months of continuous energy shortage and food price increases, this country with convenient sea transportation and multiple pillars such as tourism, clothing processing, tea, and gems is being trapped in chaos.

Wang Zhixing is a Chinese gem businessman in Sri Lanka and came to Sri Lanka in 2015. Due to the severe power deficiency in the local area, for 8-12 hours of power outages daily, his gem mining business has been affected.

He is walking in the residential area of ​​Colombo, and locals who use firewood to cook with firewood can be seen everywhere. Due to the qi shortage, the locals have been difficult to buy daily life and cook, and can only rely on the original forest resources.

Emergency and shortage

Before the crisis, Wang Zhixing's supplies for two months, rice, noodle cakes, oil, some of which were now available.

In China ’s supermarkets in Sri Lanka, condiments and foods such as oil and salt sauce vinegar and other essentials have not yet appeared, but the price is high because transportation is even more troublesome. The Sri Lankan's legal currency rupees have been depreciated in half a year, which has caused great difficulties to the lives of the locals.

At present, the shortest vacancy is imported goods such as milk and flour. In calculating, the prices of these items have risen by nearly 10 times. As of now, even if Wang Xingzhi spends 10 times higher than usual, it is difficult to find a box of fresh milk. Only occasionally in some supermarket corners, a few bags of milk powder near the shelf life can be found.

Among the supplies, the most lack of oil is oil.

The picture shows a scene of Sri Lanka Street on July 14. Photo source: respondents' picture.

The situation of oil lack has been lasted for at least three months. This is the earliest crisis signal that Wang Zhixing felt. In fact, the signal of tight oil products began to release one after another last year.

Due to the lack of oil, the local public transportation of Colombo has reduced more than two -thirds. For locals, public transportation is basically paralyzed. Because taxis cannot be added to the street, they rarely pull customers on the street. Occasionally they draw a customer, and the price of taxis is more than twice that they usually.

The residents of Colombo, including Wang Zhixing, often queue up day and night in order to add oil, and I am afraid to miss the rare opportunity to refuel.

On July 8th, at a gas station less than 10 kilometers away from Wang Zhixing, there was a commotion in the gas team with nearly a hundred people. The reason was that after many days of waiting, they finally waited for a car oil. Everyone was everyone. Everyone was everyone. Everyone was everyone. Everyone was everyone. Try to squeeze forward, hoping to add to the oil first, the conflict broke out.

The picture shows Sri Lanka residents waiting for refueling. Photo source: respondents' picture.

Sri Lanka Electric Power and Energy Minister Vegese Clara warned on July 3 that Sri Lanka's gasoline inventory was about to bottom out. He said that Sri Lanka currently has more than 12,000 tons of diesel and about 4,000 tons of gasoline inventory, and the amount of gasoline is not enough to support the usual demand for a day.

Due to the lack of power, the local implementation of a daily routine power outage is 8-12 hours, which brings difficulties in Wang Zhixing, who is engaged in the sapphire business. Due to power outages, gem mining is affected, and the output and export volume of gems are also affected. Essence

In Wang Zhixing's view, Sri Lanka's "luck" is very bad. Previously, due to foreign exchange problems, Qihuang and oil shortage occurred. However At this time, even a good situation appeared. As a result, the Russian -Ukraine conflict broke out, and oil began to rise. Most of the tourists from Russia and Ukraine were gone. There were no one on the beach scenic area. Sri Lanka was in a dilemma.

Seminar for half a year

Chinese businessman Li Zijie has noticed the changes in the situation about six months ago. The earliest depreciation of the rupee. After March 4, Sri Lankan's comparison US dollar exchange rate also plummeted from about 200. As of July 13th, it has fallen on July 13th. Go to 82%.

Following the crisis of inflation, public information showed that Sri Lanka's inflation rate reached 54.6%of the record in June, and the inflation rate of food was as high as 80.1%. According to statistics from the World Grain Program, more than 6.2 million people are facing food shortages in the country's about 22 million people, and about 61%of families have to reduce food consumption.

Li Zijie said: "During this time, prices rose 30%, 50%, or even doubled, and they were not prepared for themselves.

Wang Zhixing recalled: "Through the conversation between me and the local people, it was found that the lowest price on weekdays rose by 30%, which was doubled by a maximum of doubled. ","

Starting in April, the Chinese Embassy in Sri Lanka has repeatedly published information reminding local Chinese citizens to pay attention to safety prevention and emergency reserves. On July 13, Sri Lanka announced that the country entered an emergency.

Sri Lanka's pillar industries are tourism. In 2018, 2.3 million international passengers were received. The annual revenue of tourism in the tourism industry was as high as 4.4 billion US dollars, an increase of 10.3%year -on -year. In addition to the tourism industry, tea, gemstones, fishery products, etc. are also exported to the outside world.

A report called "Sri Lanka's Macroeconomic Challenges: A TALE of Two Deficits" released by the Asian Development Bank in 2019 states that Sri Lanka is a typical dual deficit economy -financial -fiscal Red and frequent project deficits.

In 2019, terrorist attacks occurred in Sri Lanka to hit the tourism industry. The new crown pneumonia's epidemic that subsequently appeared in 2020 has once again worsened the tourism industry. In 2021, the Sri Lankan government prohibited imported fertilizers and pesticides, but agriculture subsequently owed it, making it have to import food. The upgrade of Russia and Ukraine in 2022 has led to the continuous rise in global food and energy prices.

When the fragile economic structure encountered continuous international incidents, Sri Lanka eventually fell into the current situation.

Chinese businessmen in the golden age

At the end of 2008, Li Zijie came to Sri Lanka as an employee of a company. This company was mainly responsible for a local road construction project. After the project was completed, Li Zijie resigned and established an investment consulting company in the local area to start the road to entrepreneurship.

"At that time, Sri Lanka had more opportunities. Similar to the 1990s of our country, when the reform and opening up, it was full of dreams and passion," Li Zijie said.

From the 1950s to the 1970s, Sri Lanka was a model of development in the third world. The country has enhanced the right to speak on the global political stage through the "non -alliance movement", and rely on the first advantage of the development of the first development and social welfare to lead most developing countries. But in the 1980s, Sri Lanka fell into a 26 -year civil war.

In 2009, Sri Lanka ended a 26 -year civil war and entered a golden period of economic development.

The picture shows a scene of Sri Lanka Street on July 14. Photo source: respondents' picture.

In the first year of the civil war, the export of Sri Lanka has a rapid recovery trend. The public data from the Sri Lanka Coconut Development Bureau shows that in the first quarter of 2009, the country's food coconut exports reached 12535T, which was over the same quarter from the same quarter in 2008. The 2672T increased by 369.1%.

In 2010 and 2011, Sri Lanka's GDP growth rates reached 8%and 8.2%, respectively, and 2014 GDP growth rates also reached 7.4%.

Li Zijie said: "Time goes back to 2009 and turning on TV is the news of the start and completion of major infrastructure projects. The major projects ushered in the construction, the import and export trade was rapidly developing. The people were applauding. Endless hope. "

Around 2009, there were relatively few Chinese in Sri Lanka at the time, and Li Zijie was often regarded as Korean and Japanese.

This prosperous scene continued until 2015. Li Zijie said that the local government was re -elected in 2015. Many projects have been suspended. The company that Li Zijie just established was once in the dilemma of not much business.

On April 21, 2019, 8 serial bombs attacks occurred in many places in Coronapu, Capital of Sri Lanka, and this serial explosion had affected the local tourism industry. When the market has not recovered, another sudden epidemic has been trapped worldwide. In Li Zijie's view, as of now, the impact of the epidemic is still the largest.

Many years have passed, even after experiencing the impact of the 2019 Symbol explosion and the 2015 government's change, today faced the huge conflict of Sri Lanka again, Li Zijie still had hope. He believes that one day, Sri Lanka will return to the golden period of economic development after 2009.

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