Category: Industry
Sri Lanka Central Bank lifts vehicle import curbs
April 08, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s central bank said it has lifted the 100 percent margin deposit requirement against Letters of Credit for selected categories of vehicle imports from Wednesday. The government is now negotiating with the International Monetary Fund on a bail-out package. The margin was imposed as a monetary policy measure in […]
Merchant Cover
April 08, 2009 (LBO) – The Merchant Bank of Sri Lanka (MBSL) said it has bought full ownership of ABC Insurance Company under a share transfer agreement entered with the shareholders of the company.The insurance firm is part of Sri Lanka’a ABC group which has a strong presence in the shipping industry. MBSL, which is […]
Cash Call
April 08, 2009 (LBO) – HSBC, Europe’s biggest bank, said it had completed its 12.5-billion-pound rights issue with the sale of the remaining 3.4 percent of shares not taken up by existing shareholders, AFP news agency reported. The British banking giant said Sunday it had a 96.6 percent take-up of the record rights issue, which […]
Telco Trim
April 07, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s top celco, Dialog Telekom says it had offered a voluntary retirement scheme to employees as part of a broader cost-cutting exercise, but the total costs were not known as yet. Dialog Telekom, a unit of Telekom Malaysia, as well as other operators have had revenues and profits hit […]
Green Commerce
April 07, 2009 (LBO) – New technology that allows multiple telecom services to be delivered over a single network can sharply lower costs and make commerce greener, Hans Wijayasuriya, the head of Sri Lanka’s biggest mobile firm said. Wijayasuriya was addressing a Next Generation Networks (NGN) standardization forum in Colombo organised by the Telecommunications Regulatory […]
Regulatory Forbearance
April 06, 2009 (LBO) – The Sri Lankan government is considering relaxing criteria for bad loan provisioning to help the corporate sector cope with the effects an economic downturn, a senior finance ministry official said. Some private sector representatives from the construction sector, which has been badly affected by the slowdown, also asked at the […]
Merchant Rating
April 06, 2009 (LBO) – Fitch Ratings Lanka said it has confirmed the ‘BBB’ rating of Merchant Credit of Sri Lanka Ltd.(MCSL) with a stable outlook. The rating reflects the implied support assumed to be available from its ultimate parent, state-owned Bank of Ceylon (BOC, ‘AA(lka)’), Sri Lanka’s largest bank, the rating agency said in […]
Hedging Claim
April 04, 2009 (LBO) – Deutsche Bank has filed arbitration proceedings against the government of Sri Lanka over non-payment in oil derivatives deals with state refiner Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC).Citibank has already gone into arbitration against the CPC. CPC did the derivatives deals to protect itself when oil prices were surging and the contracts were […]
Sri Lanka state textile firm to be revived
April 03, 2009 (LBO) – Lanka Salusala, a partly operational Sri Lankan state textile firm which is overstaffed and debt ridden, is to be closed down and re-started as a new business entity. Textile development minister Mahinda Rathnathilaka said the firm will be revived as there are many legal issues relating to its liquidation. “We […]
Annual Picture
Apr 03, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s People’s Bank group has reported net profits of 3,427 million rupees in 2008, 2.2 percent lower, while interest income grew 23.4 percent to 64.3 billion rupees, according to the annual report. At stand alone bank level net profits were up 13.9 percent to 2,704 million rupees, with group […]
Sri Lanka gets more duty free access to Pakistan
April 02, 2009 (LBO) – Pakistan has increased the number of products that can be imported from Sri Lanka to 4,000 under the final phase of the free trade deal between the two countries.Exporters can obtain concessions under the FTA from the Department of Commerce which is the authority that is monitoring the implementation of […]
Closed Door
WASHINGTON, April 1, 2009 (AFP) – The United States began taking visa applications Wednesday for highly skilled foreigners, with lawmakers pressing to close the door to some of the long-coveted workers amid the recession.Robert Hoffman, a vice president at software giant Oracle and co-chair of Compete America, a coalition of tech companies lobbying to hire […]