Category: Economy and Markets

June 17, 2009 (LBO) – Sections of Sri Lanka’s bloated public sector are stealing peoples’ money in the same corrupt manner as high profile private sector scams, a senior minister said. “More than 140 state owned institutions are running at losses and have to be supported by the Treasury. Some workers don’t even come to […]

June 17, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s economic growth slowed to 1.5 percent in the first quarter of the 2009, against 6.2 in 2008 and 4.3 percent in the December quarter, officials said. Passenger kilometres flown by Sri Lankan Airlines had fallen 25.0 percent, railway passenger kilometres fell 7.7 percent, while in state bus service […]

June 16, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka cut its main policy discount rate by 50 basis points to 11.00 percent to boost credit and support post war economic recovery, amid muted inflation, the Central Bank said. The defeat of Tamil Tigers last month has raised expectations of post war reconstruction and recovery. “The renewed business […]

June 15, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s national water supply and drainage board (NWS&DB) has given 34 percent of the population pipe-borne water, but it still cannot recover costs, a finance ministry report said. The percentage of population covered by the Water Board’s pipe-borne schemes increased to 34 percent in 2008 from 32 percent in […]

June 15, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s state revenues fell 8.2 percent to 144.9 billion rupees in the first quarter of 2009, while rising expenses have ballooned the gap in the current account of the budget to an unprecedented level. In the first two months of 2009 revenues fell 10.6 percent with tax revenues falling […]

WASHINGTON, June 15, 2009 (AFP) – The International Monetary Fund projected Monday the United States would make a “solid” recovery from recession in mid-2010, but warned of major risks including the real-estate crisis and rising interest rates.In its annual report on the world’s biggest economy, the IMF projected US gross domestic product (GDP) would shrink […]

June 13, 2009 (AFP) – Sri Lanka on Saturday sought aid from the United Arab Emirates to rebuild swathes of land devastated by the near four decades long ethnic war with the Tamil Tigers. Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama, who made the request to his visiting UAE counterpart Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayid Al Nahyan, had also […]

June 12, 2009 (LBO) – A United Nations agency is getting private sector support to help re-settle a part of the 660,000 refugees in the country who are starting to return to their former homes, officials said. Brandix Lanka, a top Sri Lankan apparel group, is working with the UNHCR to provide water and sanitation […]

June 12, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s state salaries and pensions ate up 53.6 percent of tax revenues in 2008, while 129,135 workers were added to an already bloated public sector, which is the biggest in South Asia, the latest official data shows. The finance ministry said 71,323 workers were added to state services in […]