Sri Lanka’s leading business chamber urges upward revisions to local fuel and electricity prices to absorb rising international rates.
The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce met on Thursday to discuss the impacts of increasing international oil prices on the back of a prevailing drought in the island.
The Chamber is now urging “for an immediate revision of petrol, diesel and electricity prices in the country, to fully absorb the rising international prices,” a Chamber statement said on Friday.
The Chamber says the impact of higher power prices will be much less than the impact of a higher budget deficit if government subsidies were to continue.
According to the Treasury fuel imports will cost US$ 500 mn more this year but this figure could increase with analysts already expecting another price jump in winter.
Without an “immediate and adequate price revision,” the countries two power utilities and the government will have to resort to domestic borrowings to fund the deficit, the Chamber war