World News | Eric Solheim meets former Sri Lankan Prime Minister Rajapaksa in Colombo to discuss economic recovery

Colombo [Sri Lanka]October 12 (ANI): Former United Nations Under-Secretary-General Eric Solheim met former Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa in Colombo on Wednesday to discuss the country’s economic crisis.

The two leaders also discussed how Sri Lanka can emerge from the economic crisis and how a heavily indebted country can combine economics and ecology to find green solutions.

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Eric Solheim tweeted: “Meeting former President and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa in Colombo, Sri Lanka. We discussed how Sri Lanka can emerge from the economic crisis and how Sri Lanka can combine the economic and ecological to find Green solutions to the nation’s challenges.”

Due to the crisis, former prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa of the island nation cannot leave the country without court permission.

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The peaceful protests began in March as many Sri Lankans faced extreme shortages of necessities such as food and fuel.

The protests led to the resignation of then-Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa on May 9 and his brother, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who fled the country on July 13 and resigned the following day. Wickremesinghe became acting president, and Parliament elected him as the new president on July 20 with the support of Rajapaksa’s Sri Podujana Peramuna.

Sri Lanka is in the midst of its worst economic crisis on record with soaring inflation. A shortage of oil supplies has forced the closure of schools and government agencies in the debt-ridden country.

Shortages have been exacerbated by falling domestic agricultural production, insufficient foreign exchange reserves and a weakening local currency.

The economic crisis will push many households into hunger and poverty — some for the first time — and the World Bank estimates that the number of people living below the poverty line due to the pandemic will increase by 500,000. (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from the Syndicated News feed, the body of the content may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)