Category: General Services

Mar 23 (LBO) – Sri Lanka passed controversial laws on Tuesday to tax imported movies, dramas, sitcoms and commercials, though tax rates and conditions have not yet been decided.The law makes way for a Teledrama, Film and Commercials levy on imports of all television stations as well as commercials made out of the country and […]

Mar 23 (LBO) – Sri Lanka will have to further relax import tariffs on goods like cement from April this year under its trade deal with India, with customs revenues taking a hit.Sri Lanka’s bilateral trade agreements with both India and Pakistan allow for a phasing out of tariffs over a eight year period, for […]

Mar. 19 (LBO) – A prominent parliamentarian representing the minority Tamil community had branded a controversial government decision to tax television programs imported for the entertainment of minority communities as discriminatory.“It is absurd and discriminatory,” said N Raviraj member for the Jaffna district representing the Tamil National Alliance. The government has decided to charge a […]

Mar. 19 (LBO) – A prominent parliamentarian representing the minority Tamil community had branded a controversial government decision to tax television programs imported for the entertainment of minority communities as discriminatory.“It is absurd and discriminatory,” said N Raviraj member for the Jaffna district representing the Tamil National Alliance. The government has decided to charge a […]

Mar. 17 (LBO) — Sri Lanka’s top brands, from tea to popular ayurvedic balms could get a listing in a global catalogue of super-brands, by September this year.A global body set up to recognise brands, Superbrands is in over 50 countries, giving selected companies a host of promotional benefits. About 600 local and international brands […]

Mar13. (LBO) — Sri Lanka™s public sector unions are threatening a 24hour strike later this week as a dispute over a proposed pay hike continues.Essential health services will not be disrupted in the midnight-to-midnight 24 hour strike scheduled to begin Mach 15. The consortium of trade unions joining forces to form the Public Sector Salary […]

Mar. 11 (LBO) – Vanaspati, pepper and haggling over negative lists has pushed back trade talks between India and Sri Lanka on liberalising its service sectors, to May.The next round of negotiations under the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) between the two countries was to be held at the end of March. “There are few […]

Mar 09 (LBO) – A group of Singaporean investors will put in US$ 6 million to build a luxury condominium complex in hill country Kandy.A pilot project for Dynasty Developments Pvt Ltd, construction of the apartments block is to begin end March this year and be completed by third quarter 2007. About 12 of the […]

Mar. 09 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has raised the minimum investment limit by five times to US$250,000 with immediate effect for foreigners operating restaurants, health centres, shops and other businesses in the country, officials said Thursday. Presently, some 1,600 such foreign owned entities are registered with the Board of Investment (BOI), provided they meet the […]

Feb 28. (LBO) — Sri Lanka™s state run Postal Department is scouting for Rs.25 million in private investment to launch a dedicated business mail service The planned business mail service will allow commercial establishments to purchase postage over the internet and use digital encoding or barcodes instead of stamps and even addresses on their mail. […]

Feb. 20 (LBO) – Sri Lanka is staying tough on bird flu regulations, despite reports that an Indian man suspected to have died of avian influenza, was in fact killed by a bacterial infection. Indian health officials have ruled out bird flu in the death of an Indian man after laboratory tests on Sunday showed […]

Feb. 19 (LBO) – Sri Lanka is to go ahead with a controversial plan to tax imported film and television programs, which may result in the entertainment of minority language speakers of the island being heavily taxed to support programs produced in the majority language. -LBO Newsdesk: LBOEmail@ Imported movies would be taxed at the […]