Category: Money

Feb 26, 2009 (LBO) – An intervention rate quoted by a state bank in Sri Lanka’s US dollar spot market was raised to 114.25 rupees from 113.85 Thursday, and quotes in the value tomorrow market moved up to 114. 95/115.10 rupees, dealers said. The rupee hit a low of 114.80 on Wednesday in the value […]

Feb 25, 2009 (LBO) – The Sri Lanka rupee fell to a new low of 114.80 against the US dollar in value tomorrow trade with buying from a state bank, while spot dollars continued to be offered at 113.85 rupees also by a state bank, dealers said.Since September the Central Bank has lost more than […]

Feb 11, 2009 (LBO) – A fund management firm founded by senior Sri Lankan bankers say it can bridge the gap between low yielding bank deposits and risky high yield assets, by arbitraging an anomaly in the risk to reward structure in the island. Chief executive of Wealth Trust, Dhammika Ranawana, who counts years of […]

Feb 02, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka is planning to sell 500 million dollars of government securities to the diaspora community in 2009 with a road show to be kicked off this month in 11 countries, Central Bank Governor Nivard Cabraal said. The money will be channeled into the country through a forex account which […]

Feb 02, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Central Bank is negotiating with friendly central banks to swap rupees for dollars, to boost the country’s flagging foreign reserves and meet unforeseen outflows, officials said.Central Bank Governor Nivard Cabraal said the first such swap deal is likely to be concluded ‘soon’ but declined to give a date […]

Jan 29, 2009 (LBO) – Profits at Sri Lanka’s John Keells Holdings group fell 44 percent to 764 million rupees in the December 2008 quarter, with revenues dropping 16 percent to 9.3 billion, its interim accounts said.In the 9-months to December profits fell 19 percent to 2.6 billion rupees, while revenue grew 7 percent to […]

Jan 28, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s central bank says it has asked commercial banks which sold oil derivatives to state-run Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) to suspend the deals because they violated its prudential rules and were ‘tainted’.The banks had already offered to ‘re-structure’ the deals by extending payments over a longer period.The deals were […]

Jan 27, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court has ended a freeze on payments by state-run Ceylon Petroleum Corporation to commercial banks on derivatives of nearly a million barrels of crude and refined products.In November 2008 Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court halted payments by CPC on oil derivatives struck with Citibank, Standard Chartered, Deutsche Bank, […]

Jan 19, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has spent 125 million US dollars defending the rupee in foreign exchange markets in December in a month that saw the rupee weaken at a faster rate, the latest data shows. The monetary base of the country (reserve money) was at 259 billion last week from 253 billion […]

Jan 13, 2008 (LBO) – Public interest litigants who petitioned Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court to halt payments on oil derivatives have said they are willing to terminate their cases, if court orders are not carried out, lawyers said. But court had responded saying that the exercise was about judicial review of executive action through a […]

Jan 12, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s central bank said it had cut the rate on its unrestricted discount window by 200 basis points to 17 percent, with immediate effect.Inflation as measured by the year-on-year change in the Colombo Consumers’ Price Index (base=2002), which reached 14.4 per cent by end-2008, is expected to further decelerate […]

Jan 07, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s foreign reserves fell to 2,030 million US dollars in November 2008, from 2,374 million in October, which was enough to cover 1.7 months of imports, the Central Bank said.The gross reserves before the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) balance was 2,608 million US dollars which was enough to finance […]