Category: Economy

Jan 23, 2012 (LBO) – Curtains came down on the five-day long Galle Literary Festival on Sunday with discussions on obsessive love, war and Indira Gandhi taking centre stage. Biographers Nayantara Sahgal and Katherine Frank shed light on the iron lady of South Asia, the iconic Indira Gandhi’s political career and how she exercised power […]

Jan 20, 2012 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s decision to raise taxes on exports in raw form and reduce those for raw material imports is to encourage local manufacture and value addition, Minister of Industry and Commerce Rishad Bathiudeen said. The island intends to make it more expensive to export rubber, timber and minerals in raw […]

Jan 19, 2012 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s post-war economic rebound is slowing and financial problems in key Western markets could reduce demand for the island’s exports and hit earnings from worker remittances and tourism, the World Bank said. Given the possibility of further weakening in the global economy, efforts at greater revenue mobilization particularly in […]

Jan 18, 2012 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has signed co-operation deals with Qatar Holdings LLC, a sovereign wealth fund and its wholly owned real property unit following a visit to the island by the emirate’s ruler, the foreign ministry said. Qatar Diar Real Estate Investment Company has signed a deal with Sri Lanka’s Board of […]

Jan 15, 2012 (LBO) – Talks between India and Sri Lanka on fisheries have ended with no deal on firm action to stop poaching by south Indian fishermen in the island’s northern waters. “Acknowledging that fisheries involved the socio-economic and livelihood dimensions of the fishermen living in coastal areas in India and Sri Lanka, the […]

Jan 13, 2012 (LBO) – Sri Lanka is expecting most of the two billion US dollars of foreign direct investment targeted for 2012 to flow into infrastructure with 400 million US dollars going into tourism, an official said. Head of Sri Lanka’s Board of Investment, M M C Ferdinando said about a billion US dollars […]

Jan 13, 2012 (LBO) – Sri Lanka will expand a food stamp scheme to former war zones in the east adding an estimated 100,000 families to 1. 5 million already on the scheme, deputy economic development minister Lakshman Abeywardene said. “We did not want to remove the program until their incomes are stable. “We have […]

Jan 12, 2012 (LBO) – India will help rebuild 49,000 houses of war refugees and estate workers in Sri Lanka with a 260 million US dollar grant, information minister Keheliya Rambukwelle said. The Indian grant will be used in former war zones in the North and Eastern provinces of the island and in the Central […]

Jan 11, 2012 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s main policy interest rate at which cash is injected to the market will remain at 8.50 percent but an increase in market rates could help reduce money supply growth, the Central Bank said as it battles pressure on a dollar peg. Sri Lanka’s peg with the US dollar […]

Jan 06, 2012 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s main opposition has called for the immediate publication an annual report of the island’s largest pension fund also questioned state plans for a 30-storey building using private citizens’ pension money. A pension (which involves a monthly annuity) will allow the state and rulers to control the private sector […]

Jan 05, 2012 (LBO) – Sri Lankans have spent a record 600 million dollars of gold in 2011 up more than seven times from the 82 million US dollars a year, the central bank said, as demand and prices for the precious metal rose. Before the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank gold was just […]

Jan 05, 2012 (LBO) – A team of Japanese volunteers had helped village level producers to develop new products and upgrade designs to get higher prices, the Japan International Co-operation agency said. Three volunteers had worked with the island’s Samurdhi Authority, a poverty alleviation agency, to help families in several areas. These volunteers had helped […]