The National Chamber of Exporters (NCE) has requested a meeting with President Ranil Wickremesinghe and Minister of Power and Energy Kanchana Wijesekera to discuss the country’s only active foreign earning sources, export businesses.
In an interview with the media, NCE Secretary General Shiham Marikar stated that while large-scale factories with larger storage facilities were able to secure fuel by paying in US dollars, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) were having difficulty obtaining fuel due to a lack of storage facilities.
Exporters hope to meet with Wickremesinghe and Wijesekera to request an interim measure of dispatching a fuel bowser to various districts with SME factories so that they do not have to install separate storage to store fuel.
However, neither the President nor the Minister have confirmed a meeting with exporters.
In April, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) approved a mechanism that allows exporters to pay in US dollars rather than Sri Lankan rupees when purchasing diesel from the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC), Lanka Indian Oil Company (LIOC), and Sri Lanka Ports Authority’s Jaya Container Terminals Ltd.
The CBSL confirmed that exporters were permitted to pay for their diesel requirements in US dollars, and that the remainder of their export proceeds would be mandatorily converted subject to the permitted exceptions in accordance with Gazette No. 2251/42 issued by the CBSL on October 28, 2021.
Negotiations for such an arrangement began last month, when power outages in Sri Lanka reached a peak, and this arrangement was viewed positively as a measure that could assist LIOC and CPC in procuring their fuel requirements.