Category: Economy

May 30, 2007 (AFP) – The international Red Cross resumed work Wednesday on Sri Lanka’s battle-scarred front lines, offering safe passage for civilians between government and rebel territory, the Geneva-based charity said.The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it would initially man two entry and exit points three days a week in the […]

May 30, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s inflation spiked in May by a massive 3 percentage points, reversing a three month trend of falling prices, but the 12-month un-adjusted inflation continued to move down. Sri Lanka’s interest rates have been moving up from the beginning of the year as the government borrows heavily from domestic […]

GENEVA, May 29, 2007 (AFP) – Some 30,000 Sri Lankans who had fled fighting in the east of the country have returned to their homes over the past two weeks under a government resettlement plan, the UN refugee agency said Tuesday.The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, which is monitoring the process, said […]

May 28, 2007 (LBO) – A controversy has erupted over a graph published in Lanka Business Online, which shows a co-relation between inflation and central bank credit, or money printed by the Central Bank to finance the budget deficit. . The first shots were fired at an economic policy debate organized by the Chartered Institute […]

May 28, 2007 (LBO) – Delays in making value added tax (VAT) refunds are forcing Sri Lankan exporters to borrow at high cost and threatening export growth, a senior industry official has warned. “The VAT refund is one of the major crises that Sri Lanka’s import-export industry is currently facing,” says Rohan Masakorala, a former […]

May 25, 2007 (LBO) – Prospective Malaysian shareholders of Sri Lanka Telecom are seeking wide-ranging management control to purchase a 25 percent stake currently owned by Japan’s NTT through a shareholders’ agreement being negotiated among the three parties. Watertight Sources familiar with the deal’s provisions claimed it could also undermine telecom regulation in the future […]

May 25, 2007 (LBO) – The World Bank Friday agreed to give Sri Lanka a soft loan of 32 million dollars to help tens of thousands Muslim victims of Tamil Tiger ‘ethnic cleansing’. The money will be used to provide housing, drinking water and sanitation to 20,600 displaced families, most of whom were driven out […]

May 24, 2007 (LBO) – Women with qualifications and experience similar to males get paid an average 18 percent less, according to research, but the government says otherwise. Governments and companies in poor countries like Sri Lanka can’t afford that level of intervention. Women with similar education, location and experience as men were employed in […]

May 23, 2007 (LBO) – The United States has subcontracted a Sri Lankan firm to construct five schools in the south of the island a week after it awarded a contract to build four schools in the east, the US embassy in Colombo said. Access also holds the contract for the fishing harbors element of […]

May 22, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka will reach the June reserve money target ‘comfortably’ with interest rates at current levels, the Central Bank said in its May monetary policy review. Though reserve money increased in April from a higher demand for currency, the bank says it was able to meet an internal target for […]

May 22, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Central Bank will diligently pursue its aim of economic and price stability and not finance the budget deficit with printed money, Governor Nivard Cabraal said. Quoting former Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Paul Volcker, he said the “truly unique power of a central bank is the power to create […]

May 22, 2007 (LBO) – Government revenue is improving and the Inland Revenue Department hopes to clear most of the backlog in value added tax refunds in 3-4 months, Finance Ministry Secretary P.B. Jayasundera said Tuesday. “We’ve streamlined the VAT refunds process and closed some loopholes,” he told a seminar organized by the Sri Lanka […]