Cash-strapped Sri Lanka’s economy recorded falling consumer prices for the first time in 39 years, official data showed on Monday, with the September inflation figure dipping to negative 0.5 per cent. Census and Statistics Department data showed price drops in both food and non-food goods contributing to deflation in September, compared to inflation of 0.5pc in August. Sri Lanka last recorded deflation in October 1985 with a figure of negative 2.1pc. Inflation peaked at 69.8pc two years ago at the height of an unprecedented in the island nation. Acute shortages of food, fuel and medicines led to months of that eventually forced then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa to temporarily the country and resign in July 2022. His successor Ranil Wickremesinghe a $2.9billion International Monetary Fund bailout and raised taxes and prices to stabilise the economy. Wickremesinghe lost office after a earlier this month. The of that contest, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, has vowed to maintain the IMF programme but relax some of the austerity measures it imposed.