All Blogs
Farmers in the dock in water-deficient India
NEW DELHI, March 8, 2010 (AFP) – India faces a water crisis with availability in decline and demand rocketing, and the profligate agricultural sector is in the firing line. Farmers’ wasteful use of water is unsustainable in a country with a fast-growing population and rapidly industrialising economy, says Water Resources Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal. Agriculture […]
Sri Lanka relaxes some forex controls
Mar 08, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has relaxed several exchange controls relating to opening bank accounts abroad, forward forex cover and imports margin deposits and prepayments from March 11 in the first phase of a forex liberalization plan announced earlier in the year. “This is the first series of relaxations,” Central Bank governor Nivard […]
Asset Probe
Mar 07, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court has ordered a probe on the purchase of a Ceylinco group firm by the chairman of Merchant Bank of Sri Lanka, a state-run bank, in the course of a court case relating to a failed financial firm, a media report said. Supreme Court Justice Shirani Tilakawardene […]
Record Numbers
Mar 07, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Hatton National Bank group December quarter net profits were up 156 percent from a year earlier to 1,830 million rupees on loan recoveries and wider margins, while full year profits grew 58 percent to 4,483 million rupees. HNB reported earnings per share of 7.76 rupee for the quarter […]
Narrow Profits
Mar 07, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Pan Asia Banking Corporation’s (PABC) December quarter profits fell 70 percent to 19. 7 million rupees from a year earlier, on higher expenses and tax while full year net was up 73 percent to 387 million rupees on fee income. Full year interest income was up 10 percent […]
Tax Brake
Mar 07, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has to cut its high rate of tax on banks to allow the sector to build capital as the economy is poised to grow after a war ended last year, a top banker has said. Taxation has in the past and continues to be in the present a […]
‘s detained opposition leader threatens hunger strike
March 7, 2010 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s former army chief and defeated presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka has threatened to go on a hunger strike to protest against his detention, his wife said Sunday. However, he later fell out with Rajapakse and mounted a failed bid to unseat the president in elections. Fonseka will begin his […]
Sri Lanka tourist trade seen recovering fast
Mar 06, 2010 (LBO) – Over half-a-million tourists are expected to visit Sri Lanka this year as the travel trade bounces back strongly from the effects of a war with hotels so heavily booked that some are even refusing new reservations till end of March, officials said. Tourism authorities have planned an aggressive global promotion […]
Arrests
BERLIN, March 5, 2010 (AFP) – German authorities said Friday that police have arrested six people suspected of raising funds for the Sri Lankan separatist group the Tamil Tigers. The German and Sri Lankan nationals aged between 22 and 58 were arrested on Wednesday in raids on eight premises including the Tamil Coordination Committee (TCC) […]
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March 6, 2010 (AFP) – India’s foreign secretary Nirupama Rao will hold talks with Sri Lanka’s president on resolving the grievances of the island’s Tamil minority this weekend, an official source said Saturday. India sent troops to supervise a 1987 Indo-Lanka peace pact and ended up fighting separatist Tamil rebels. After its troop withdrawal in […]