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Sri Lanka stocks close 0.68-pct up
Feb 26, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lankan shares closed slightly higher Friday and passed 3,800 points as investors continued to bet on mid cap stocks, mainly financial and selected plantation firms, brokers said. Maskeliya Plantations closed at 35.50 rupees, up 25 cents. Conglomerate John Keells holdings closed at 168.25 rupees, up 50 cents, and Distilleries […]
Bank Return
Feb 26, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Hatton National Bank (HNB) said group net profits for the 2009 financial year rose 58 percent to 4.5 billion rupees with gains from investments in government securities while the loan book shrank. The bank said in a stock exchange filing that group December quarter profits shot up 156 […]
Sri Lanka tea prices fall
Feb 26, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lankan tea prices at the Colombo auctions fell for the second week running this week on bigger volumes and lower quality, although production was recovering, brokers said. Asia Siyaka Commodities said Sri Lanka’s January output indicated a recovery in the island’s production, especially among small farmers cultivating the low […]
Price Pressure
Feb 26, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka Telecom group said it suffered a loss in the December quarter but ended the year with a net profit of 785 million rupees, down 89 percent from a year ago. Group sales in the 2009 financial year rose two percent to 48 billion rupees from the previous year, […]
Weak monsoon hits Indian growth
NEW DELHI, February 26, 2010 (AFP) – India’s economic growth slowed sharply in the final quarter of 2009 to 6. 0 percent year on year, hit by lower farm output after the weakest monsoon in 37 years, data showed Friday. The figure for the October-December period, the third quarter of India’s fiscal year, compared with […]
Sri Lanka Union Assurance 2009 net up 17-pct
Feb 26, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Union Assurance said net profit for the 2009 financial year went up 17 percent to 401 million rupees from a year ago as investment income rose sharply. Total annual revenue rose 19 percent to 6. 68 billion rupees, the company, in which John Keells Holdings has an 81 […]
Top Sri Lanka economist seeks parliamentary entry
Feb 26, 2010 (LBO) – Top Sri Lanka economist Harsha de Silva has been nominated as a candidate from the main opposition United National Party for parliamentary polls to be held in April. De Silva has been a firm critic of deficit spending, high inflation and weak macro-economic management and had managed to generate a […]
Sri Lanka crackdown shreds hopes of reconciliation
February 25, 2010 (AFP) – In the afterglow of his thumping re-election last month, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse promised to build a strong and unified country that would consign its 37-year civil war to the past. Instead, his government launched a sweeping crackdown that has seen the man he defeated at the polls, former […]
Sri Lanka inflation gathers speed to 6.9-pct in Feb
Feb 26, 2010 (LBO) – Inflation in Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo accelerated to 6. 9 percent in February 2010 from a year earlier, up from 6.5 percent January while prices increased 0. 2 percent during the month, the government’s statistics office said. Sri Lanka’s Colombo consumer price index (CCPI) has been rising steadily after April […]
IMF backs Sri Lanka central bank stance
Feb 26, 2010 (LBO) – The International Monetary Fund, which put a deal with Sri Lanka on the shelf till at least May on a runaway budget, has backed the monetary policy stance of the island’s central bank. The central bank met its two performance criteria under the 2. 6 billion US dollar deal, a […]
Sri Lanka shares becalmed
Feb 25, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lankan shares closed almost flat Thursday as many investors chose to hold and not trade with parliamentary elections due in April, brokers said. “The first full-year, post-war results would be comping out after the elections and the first quarter results. ” There were two private off-the-floor deals, one involving […]
Branch Expansion
Feb 25, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s HSBC unit has opened a new branch in the capital Colombo pushing the total up to 15, within weeks of starting a new branch in the northern Jaffna peninsular. The new branch in Maitland Crescent in the upmarket Cinnamon Gardens or Colombo 7 area also has a ‘premier […]