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Sri Lanka rupee looks for direction amid IMF talks
April 03, 2009 (LBO) – The Sri Lanka rupee held steady against the US dollar in intra-day trading around 116.00 rupees Friday days after an International Monetary Fund mission wrapped up talks in Colombo, and a bailout expected within weeks. “An IMF mission is back to Washington and continues discussions with the authorities on the […]
More regulations, same monetary system, after G20
LONDON, April 2, 2009 (AFP) – G20 leaders made major progress in reforming a “failed regulatory system” for global finance which had endangered the world’s prosperity, US President Barack Obama said after their summit Thursday. “We made enormous strides in committing ourselves to comprehensive reform of a failed regulatory system,” he said after a G20 […]
Sri Lanka brain drain still key corporate concern
April 02, 2009 (LBO) – The migration of skilled professionals remains a major concern for Sri Lanka’s corporate sector, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said.Hasitha Wickremasinghe, an economist for the ADB in Sri Lanka, said a recent survey of the corporate sector by the bank had revealed brain drain was continuing unabated. The problem was […]
Sri Lankan stocks close down
Apr 02, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lankan shares closed weaker Thursday dragged down by low volume transactions on Hatton National Bank (HNB) and Development Finance Corporation of Ceylon (DFCC), brokers said. Dialog Telekom, a subsidiary of Telekom Malaysia, closed flat at 4.80 rupees, while fixed-line giant Sri Lanka Telecom lost 25 cents to close at […]
Oil Hit
April 02, 2009 (LBO) – Non-performing assets at Citibank’s Sri Lanka branch have rocketed after state-run Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) refused to pay up on controversial oil derivatives which went against the utility.Citi, Standard Chartered, Deutsche Bank and locally incorporated People’s Bank and Commercial Bank sold oil derivatives to CPC. Commercial Bank took a 692 […]
Shrinking Credit
April 02, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s private sector credit is shrinking with credit card users also falling for two straight months as an economic slowdown begins to bite, the latest official data show. Credit from central bank to the government rose to 244.5 billion rupees in January 2009, from 217.4 billion rupees a month […]
Sri Lanka tea exports tumble in February
April 2, 2009 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s tea exports slid nearly 30 percent in February due to an output slump blamed on a “severe drought,” officials said Thursday.Sri Lanka is one of the world’s biggest tea exporters and the commodity is its largest foreign exchange-earner. Tea exports fell 29.2 percent to 131.3 million dollars in […]
Closed Door
WASHINGTON, April 1, 2009 (AFP) – The United States began taking visa applications Wednesday for highly skilled foreigners, with lawmakers pressing to close the door to some of the long-coveted workers amid the recession.Robert Hoffman, a vice president at software giant Oracle and co-chair of Compete America, a coalition of tech companies lobbying to hire […]
Sri Lanka summons Norwegian envoy over alleged Tiger call
April 2, 2009 (AFP) – Sri Lanka said Thursday it had summoned Norway’s envoy to complain about the Nordic country’s alleged role in arranging a telephone conversation between Tamil Tiger rebels and a UN official. Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona said the government voiced its “displeasure” over the call supposedly arranged last week between UN humanitarian […]
Sri Lanka to get US emergency food aid
April 02, 2009 (LBO) – The US Agency for International Development (USAID) said it has donated 15 million dollars (1.7 billion rupees) worth of food aid for Sri Lanka to the United Nations World Food Program (WFP). USAID said its donation supports the WFP Protracted Relief and Recovery Operation (PRRO) titled Food for Peacebuilding and […]