I can turn around Sri Lanka’s economy: PM Ranil Wickremesinghe

Ranil Wickremesinghe, the newly appointed prime minister of crisis-hit Sri Lanka, has said he is confident he can turn the economy around – but cautioned it will take 18 months before stability returns. “The year 2023 is going to be difficult, but by 2024 things should pick up,” Wickremesinghe told Al Jazeera last week [Thursday] in a wide-ranging interview at his official residence in the capital, Colombo. The 73-year-old leader, who in May became prime minister for the sixth time, said that he took up the job under extraordinary circumstances. “We had nearly two days without a government; things were getting out of hand,” he said, recalling the mass protests over shortages of fuel and electricity that forced Mahinda Rajapaksa, his predecessor and the brother of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, to resign. Al Jazeera's Minelle Fernandez reports from Colombo. Subscribe to our channel http://bit.ly/AJSubscribe Follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/AJEnglish Find us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera Check our website: http://www.aljazeera.com/ @AljazeeraEnglish #Aljazeeraenglish #News
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