Category: Industry
Cold Chain
Mar 17, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Finlays Colombo group said it is considering expanding its cold storage business into a network with profitability improving and the unit getting more customers last year. Use of the Finlays cold store eliminates the need for customers to invest in their own expensive storage facilities. It also enables […]
Sri Lanka hotels dress up for post-war rush
March 17, 2010 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s hotel owners are racing to refurbish and add thousands more rooms as foreign holidaymakers pour into the country after the end of nearly four decades of ethnic bloodshed. Leading hotel groups plan to spend millions of dollars on new decor and facilities for the influx of tourists drawn […]
Bike Ride
Mar 17, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Singer unit said its sales of motor cycles and bicycles picked up speed in 2009, with demand from former war-torn areas, while its consumer durables sales in the rest of the island plunged. Singer Sri Lanka said sales of bicycles and motor cycles grew 26 percent to 757 […]
Sri Lanka Tea Board probes fake tea complaint
Mar 16, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Tea Board is investigating complaints by an exporter that certain teas sold in Europe as pure Ceylon tea are actually blended with teas from other origins, officials said. Zarook alleged that his competitors in Germany were competing on price because they were mixing Ceylon tea with Vietnamese tea […]
Sri Lanka to allow recreational flying
Mar 16, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has decided to lift restrictions on private flying and open up her skies for recreational aviation to lure tourists after the end of a 30-year war, a senior official said. Dissanayake said they want to revive an ‘open skies’ scheme started in November 2006 in the island’s south […]
Furniture Push
Mar 16, 2010 (LBO) – The Sri Lanka unit of Singer, a consumer durables firm, said it was re-branding a furniture range under its own name and pushing it out to rural areas where the firm has strong brand loyalty. “There is more potential in the growth in the consumer behaviour in rural areas. There […]
Sri Lanka Spence Hotel earmarks investments for former war zone
Mar 16, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Aitken Spence Hotel Holdings said the largest chunk of 2.5 billion rupees it plans to raise through a rights issue will go for new hotels in the island’s former war zone. It also plans to build a hotel in the northern Jaffna region. The firm said about a […]
Sri Lanka lures back Japanese surfers
Mar 15, 2010 (LBO) – Some of the world’s top surfers will take part in a Japanese surfing championship that returns to Sri Lanka this month after a five-year break following the end of the island’s ethnic war. The Japan Pro Surfing Association’s (JPSA) annual competition will be held during March 19-23 at Hikkaduwa, a […]
Reaching Out
Mar 15, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lankan finance companies should reach out to rural areas which historically have been short of credit, governor of the Central Bank, Nivard Cabraal, said. Rural savers are also known to make deposits at unregulated finance companies that offer high interest rates but risk making heavy losses if the firms […]
Extra Income
Mar 15, 2010 (LBO) – Payment of an extra 20 percent ‘bonus interest’ to Sri Lankan senior citizens on rupee deposits maintained at licensed commercial banks will start from Thursday, March 18, the Central Bank said. The government will pay the extra interest to citizens over 60 years of age subject to a limit of […]
Port Move
Mar 15, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Colombo port will get new cranes before the end of this year to replace aging equipment and improve cargo handling capacity, a senior official said. Container traffic in Colombo, which is a hub for south Asian cargo, has begun to recover after dipping last year because of global […]
Slick Market
Mar 14, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Chevron lubricants unit said sales fell in 2009 with a downturn in local and export demand, but is expecting a recovery this year with new demand expected from former war torn areas. The firm said industry volumes fell 7. 0 percent in which was the third consecutive year […]