Team News Riveting
A World Bank report said that Sri Lanka ranked 5th among the 10 countries with the highest food price inflation.
In the latest World Bank assessment, Lebanon, Zimbabwe, Venezuela and Turkey ranked first four countries in the assessment while Iran, Argentina, Suriname, Ethiopia and Moldova ranked behind Sri Lanka.
The World Bank said that record high food prices had triggered a global crisis that would propel millions more into extreme poverty, magnifying hunger and malnutrition, while threatening to erase hard-won gains in development. The war in Ukraine, supply chain disruptions, and the continued economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic are reversing years of development gains and pushing food prices to all-time highs, it added.
Rising food prices have a greater impact on people in low-and middle-income countries, since they spend a larger share of their income on food than people in high-income countries.
India’s neigbour Sri Lanka is the only Asian country to find place in the list though a few are also reeling under severe economic crisis. The unprecedented development in island nation forced its President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country following domestic unrest as people came to the streets and vent their fury for plunging the country into worst-ever crisis.
India is providing all necessary assistance to Sri Lanka and has been the highest contributor of aids to its people. In the latest, Sri Lanka yesterday received 21,000 tonnes of fertilizer from India.