With Sri Lanka enduring severe economic hardships for months, social media posts shared hundreds of times have circulated a claim that KFC, Pizza Hut, Coca-Cola, and Pepsi were "winding up operations" in the island nation. However, representatives for four multinational companies separately told AFP the claim is not true. As of May 30, there were no credible reports the four firms were ceasing operations in Sri Lanka.

"With the steep depreciation of the rupee, these multinational companies have begun winding up operations in Sri Lanka," reads the Sinhala-language text overlaid on an image that featured the logos of four companies -- KFC, Pizza Hut, Coca-Cola, and Pepsi.

It was posted on May 24 in a Facebook post and shared more than 800 times.

Sri Lanka is facing its worst-ever shortage of foreign exchange with the government unable to finance even the most essential imports such as food, fuel, and medicines.

Customers have been unable to obtain petrol, diesel, or cooking gas, and staple foods have been rationed. In addition, the country is experiencing record inflation and daily power outages.

The image with the identical claim was also shared more than 300 times on Facebook here and here.

AFP spoke to representatives from the companies mentioned in the posts on May 26 -- and all denied the claim.

Ranil Irugalbandara, chief operations officer of KFC in Sri Lanka, told AFP: "This is a fake claim. There is no such plan to shut down the operations of KFC. In fact, we are...

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