COLOMBO: Sri Lanka is set to start bartering tea to Iran next month in lieu of $250 million owed for oil, a Sri Lankan official said on Friday, as the crisis-hit country tries to lift sales to a key market and protect its forex reserves.
The barter was agreed upon in 2021 for oil imported in the year 2012, but the exchange was delayed after the island nation’s unprecedented dollar shortage last year plunged the economy into its worst financial crisis in more than seven decades.