COLOMBO, May 24 Reuters Sri Lanka increased fuel prices on Tuesday, a longflagged move to mend public finances and combat its debilitating economic crisis, but the hikes are bound to add to galloping inflation at least in the short term.

Power and Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera said in a message on Twitter that petrol prices would increase by 2024 while diesel prices would rise by 3538 with immediate effect. Daily limits on how much each consumer can purchase will continue.

The government will hold talks with transport sector stakeholders to increase costs parallel to the latest increases, he later said in an online cabinet briefing.

Fuel and transport price increases will inevitably flow through to food and other goods, economists said.

Annual inflation in the island nation rose to a record 33.8 in April compared with 21.5 in March, according to government data released on Monday.

Not only the petrol problem consumer prices, everything is very high, food is also very high, said businessman Mohammad Irfan, waiting in a queue at a gas pump in the capital, Colombo. He said he had been there for four hours.

It is very difficult for the poor people, middle class people. They are facing problems day by day.

Sri Lanka is in the throes of its worst economic crisis since independence in 1948, as a dire shortage of foreign exchange has stalled imports and left the country short of fuel and medicines, and struggling with rolling power cuts.

The financial trouble…