Category: Money

July 31, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka plans to raise 500 million dollars from foreign investors through a bond or syndicated loan, with an International Monetary Fund endorsement under its belt, a media report said. Sri Lanka is seeking to raise money overseas along with countries like the Philippines and Indonesia at a time the […]

July 16, 2009 (LBO) – Investors who met a Sri Lanka government team who are on a road show ahead of a possible debt deal are bullish on the country’s prospects after the end of a 30-year war, a top official said. “Many investors are interested in the Sri Lanka situation and are quite bullish […]

July 13, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s gross foreign reserves, without an advance to domestic banks, rose to 1,291 million US dollars in May 2009 from 1,131 million US dollars in April, the latest official data showed.With a 145 million US dollar deposit at a domestic bank, gross monetary and fiscal reserves went up to […]

July 7, 2009 (LBO) – Head of Rogers Holdings, Jim Rogers will only buy Sri Lankan stocks and he is getting out of dollar assets because the Federal Reserve is printing money and the US government is deficit spending, a media report said. Stocks in Sri Lanka are “the only equities” Rogers would “consider buying […]

July 4, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s central bank has bought 290 million US dollars from forex markets in June to boost its foreign reserves, bringing the total purchases since a float of its currency in March to 450 million US dollars. The vicious cycle quickly gathers pace, and uncertainty about the currency results in […]

July 1, 2009 (LBO) – A decision on a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for Sri Lanka expected in “four or five weeks” will be a test of the objectivity of the organization, a government minister said. In March, Sri Lanka floated the rupee, as a prior action for the loan ending a […]

June 25, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s public debt office has announced a ‘reverse auction’ to retire a part of the bonds maturing in August, which would help reduce bunching up of maturities, dealers said. The banking system is also flushed with liquidly from central bank dollar purchases.The government is offering to buy back 7.6 […]

June 24, 2009 (LBO) – The United States is not blocking an International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan to Sri Lanka but the US Treasury and State Department “will carefully assess” the program, an official has said. “We are not threatening to block the loan and we will carefully assess any program in light of the […]

June 22, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s official external reserves without advances to domestic banks had increased 59 million US dollars to 1,131 million US dollars in April from 1,072 million US dollars in March, the Central Bank said. Remittances were 228 million US dollars more than the trade deficit, the Central Bank said As […]

June 19, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has repaid 125 million US dollars from a dollar loan arranged by Standard Chartered Bank last year, as lenders exercised an option, Central Bank Governor Nivard Cabraal said. Under Sri Lanka’s monetary law, the Central Bank acts as ‘banker’ to the government.The government’s debt office is also a […]

June 8, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s central bank has bought 160.25 million US dollars from foreign exchange markets since a float of the currency in late March 2009, with 123.0 million collected in the month of May. As soon as the ‘quantity easing’ stops, the peg tightens. A float is necessary to break the […]