COLOMBO
\nThere have been days when cybersecurity professional Asela Waidyalankara and his colleagues have sat in hotel lobbies to complete projects during power outages. Other days, they have run around Colombo looking for fuel for generators so they could work from home.
\nAljazeera reported, \u201cWe have a buddy system at the company to inform each other about fuel availability,\u201d laughs Waidyalankara, adding that his company encourages staff to carpool if they have to attend meetings in Colombo and work from home when possible.
\nBefore the pandemic, Sri Lanka\u2019s IT industry employed more than 120,000 people and was the fifth-largest export earner for the island nation of 22 million. It was on track to become the top exporter within the next five years and double its employees. But with the government of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa having defaulted on its foreign debt earlier this year and critical shortages crippling the economy, those plans are now in jeopardy as it becomes harder to maintain normal business operations.
\nDaily, hours-long power cuts are now normal. Fuel queues stretch for kilometres, sometimes so far that one fuel queue meets another. The country is running on a cash flow basis. \u201cWe are using whatever dollars that flow in to purchase the essentials we can,\u201d Nandalal Weerasinghe, governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL), said last month.
\nOn May 19, the CBSL said it expects the economy to \u201crecord a setback\u201d even as the cost of living continues to shoot up \u2013 May inflation was 39.1 percent, and fuel prices have more than doubled since the start of the year.
\nBefore the pandemic, Sri Lanka\u2019s IT industry employed more than 120,000 people and was the fifth-largest export earner for the island nation of 22 million. It was on track to become the top exporter within the next five years and double its employees. But with the government of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa having defaulted on its foreign debt earlier this year and critical shortages crippling the economy, those plans are now in jeopardy as it becomes harder to maintain normal business operations.
\nDaily, hours-long power cuts are now normal. Fuel queues stretch for kilometres, sometimes so far that one fuel queue meets another. The country is running on a cash flow basis. \u201cWe are using whatever dollars that flow in to purchase the essentials we can,\u201d Nandalal Weerasinghe, governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL), said last month. On May 19, the CBSL said it expects the economy to \u201crecord a setback\u201d even as the cost of living continues to shoot up \u2013 May inflation was 39.1 percent, and fuel prices have more than doubled since the start of the year. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
COLOMBO There have been days when cybersecurity professional Asela Waidyalankara and his colleagues have sat in hotel lobbies to complete projects during power outages. Other days, they have run around Colombo looking for fuel for generators so they could work from home. Aljazeera reported, \u201cWe have a buddy system at the company to inform each […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265419,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[181,1712,7137,8350,3408],"class_list":{"0":"post-265400","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-dollar","9":"tag-earning","10":"tag-economic-crisis","11":"tag-it-firms","12":"tag-threatens"},"yoast_head":"\n