Category: Industry
Galle literary festival in Sri Lanka gears up for 2012
Sept 22, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Galle literary festival is notching up writers and sponsors for 2012 but it would remain ‘intimate’ giving audiences an opportunity to engage more closely with writers, organizers said. The festival started in 2007 amidst a three decade old war which ended two years later. The festival has since […]
Big Ticket
Sept 22, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s National Development Bank is positioning itself to push ‘big ticket’ deals in global markets partnering with Singapore’s DBS Bank as the end of a war bring new investment opportunities, officials said. NDB Bank group chief executive said Russell de Mel said an investment banking partnership with Singapore’s DBS […]
Box Terminal
Sept 22, 2011 (LBO) – A Sino-Lanka consortium that is to build a container terminal in Colombo’s new deep-water South Port has signed a deal with Sri Lanka’s investment promotion agency entitling it for tax breaks. Building of the 500 million US dollar terminal by the consortium consisting of China Merchants Holdings, Sri Lanka’s Aitken […]
Sri Lanka lures youth for skills gap in booming tourist trade
Sept 21, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lanka is to launch a campaign to educate youth of opportunities in the booming tourist industry where a skilled labour shortage looms with an influx of visitors after the end of a war. Last year 950 million people visited globally countries that were not native to them, he said, […]
Bank Link
Sept 21, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s National Development Bank said it was in talks with DBS of Singapore to strengthen its investment banking operations. NDB said a memorandum of understanding with DBS will e signed today. DBS started in 1968 as the Development Bank of Singapore but is now a financial services group with […]
Asset Quality
Sept 21, 2011 (LBO) – RAM Ratings Lanka has confirmed Sampath Bank’s long- and short-term financial institution ratings at AA and P1 with the long-term rating carrying a stable outlook. We also derive comfort from the Bank’s healthy internal capital-generation rate of 20.38% as at end-Dec 2010, which stands the best among its similar-rated peers. […]
Box Movements
Sept 21, 2011 (LBO) – Container cargo volumes at Sri Lanka’s Colombo port fell in July although still higher so far this year compared with the same period in 2010, with a noticeable downturn in transhipment traffic. The total number of containers fell 2. 6 percent in July 2011 to 354,054 TEUs (twenty-foot foot equivalent […]
Motor Move
Sept 21, 2011 (LBO) – The Sri Lankan agency for South Korea’s KIA Motors is to invest about a billion rupees in the next three years to expand its service facilities amid a surge in sales of sports utility vehicles. Imports of motor vehicles into the island surged after the government slashed import duties, some […]
Tele Trend
Sept 20, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s mobile users grew 14. 5 percent to 18.1 million in the second quarter of 2011 from a year earlier down from an 18. 5 percent expansion seen in the first quarter, official data showed. Wireless fixed usage contracted 2. 5 percent to 2.68 million in the second quarter […]
Regulator Posts
Sept 19, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s central bank has promoted three assistant governors, P Nandalal Weerasinghe, B D W A Silva and C Premeratne to the posts of deputy governor, a statement said. Weerasinghe and Silva were promoted with effect from September 27, 2011 and Premeratne is to be promoted with effect from January […]
Financial Strength
Sept 19, 2011 (LBO) – Fitch Ratings Lanka has confirmed Citibank N.A. – Colombo Branch’s (CitiSL) national long-term rating at ‘AAA(lka)’ with a stable outlook. “CitiSL’s rating reflects Citibank N.A.’s (Citibank) financial strength,” it said in a statement. “Given that CitiSL is a branch and part of the same legal entity as Citibank, Fitch believes […]
Debt Rating
Sept 19, 2011 (LBO) – Fitch Ratings Lanka has assigned Senkadagala Finance’s (SFC) proposed senior unsecured redeemable debentures of up to 300 million rupees a ‘BBB+(lka)’ rating. The agency has also confirmed and withdrawn the ‘BBB+(lka)’ rating on SFC’s proposed listed debenture issuance of a billion rupees scheduled to take place in March 2011 due […]