Category: Industry
Outstation Opportunity
May 15, 2008 (LBO) – Bartleet Finance, part of Sri Lanka’s Bartleet group, is considering setting up a branch in northern Jaffna and expanding in rural areas where officials say there is much potential. Managing director Susantha Fernando said the firm faced difficulties this year because of soaring interest rates but believes rates have now […]
Port Contract
May 15, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has approved the award of a 46 million euro contract for a Denmark based firm to build a port in the eastern coast of the island, a senior minister said. The cabinet of ministers had given the go ahead for MT Hojgaard to build a port in the […]
Wider Portfolio
May 14, 2008 (LBO) – The Sri Lanka unit of India’s Tata Communications is looking to expand in to new areas after getting 30 percent of the outgoing voice traffic of the country, officials said. . “We are looking for new licenses to expand into areas demanded by our customers,” Tata Communications group chief N […]
Software Piracy
SINGAPORE, May 14, 2008 (AFP) – Software piracy increased last year in the Asia-Pacific region, boosted by China’s growing use of personal computers, an industry group said on Wednesday.The Asia-Pacific’s average PC software piracy rate in 2007 increased to 59 percent of the software in use in the region from 55 percent the previous year, […]
Margin Play
May 14, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s state-run Bank of Ceylon has seen margins squeezed in 2007 amidst directed lending and rising funding costs, but has pushed up fee income and cut bad loans in the period. In 2007 group revenue rose 40 percent to 52.3 billion rupees while interest income rose 56 percent to […]
Repeat Business
May 14, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Colombo Dockyard, a unit of Japan’s Onomichi and the country’s sole listed shipbuilder, has won two new orders from Greatship (India), for bigger and more expensive vessels, an official said. Greatship is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Great Eastern Shipping Company. The firm had previously ordered four […]
Bollywood Link
May 13, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka and India’s Adlabs plan to enter into a joint venture to upgrade 30 local cinemas, an official said. A mission from the entertainment company will be in Sri Lanka shortly, Saman Weeraman, head of the State Film Corporation said. Adlabs plans to develop and modernize the cinemas with […]
Rural Health
May 13, 2008 (LBO) – Japan has given a grant of 3,103 million yen (about 3.2 billion rupees) to expand Sri Lanka’s third largest hospital and import equipment for development projects, the finance ministry said Tuesday. . It said in a statement that 1.8 billion yen would go to modernise the Anuradhapura teaching hospital, the […]
Sri Lanka Ceylinco starts outpatient health insurance
May 12, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Ceylinco Insurance is offering cover for outpatient services which would be made available through a network of healthcare centres around the island, officials said. The Ceylinco National Health Policy sold at a premium of 500 rupees a year allows policy holders to get medical consultation at a Ceylinco […]
Converged Service
May 12, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka Dialog Telekom says it is offering a new voice and broadband bundled service that can slash charges and reduce hardware costs, the company said in a statement. The ‘Box Office’ package by Dialog Broadband Networks subsidiary will combine voice telephony with private branch exchange facilities, WiMax services to […]
Black Gold
May 10, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka is to award its first offshore oil exploration contract before the end of May, petroleum minister A H M Fowzie said. The ministry was preparing a paper on bids received for offshore exploration and its recommendation to submit to the cabinet of ministers for approval next week, he […]
Serendipity
May 09, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka is to start searching for oil onshore after the accidental discovery of gas seeping from the ground, government officials said. Petroleum minister A H M Fowzie said Friday the government has received technical support from Egypt to start the initial exploration work. The accidental discovery of signs of […]