Category: Industry
Roaming Call
Sept 06, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lankan mobile operator Mobitel has launched two international roaming services for customers travelling overseas. One service is the loyalty programme for in-bound international roaming customers, launched in collaboration with Travelling Connect, a global provider of loyalty management services to the telecommunication industry. A statement by Mobitel, a subsidiary of […]
More Cash
Sept 06, 2007 (LBO) – Massachusetts-based Virtusa Corp., an IT services firm with operations in Sri Lanka that raised 57 million dollars from a NASDAQ listing last month, said its first quarter profit fell slightly. “The company’s effective tax rate increased from 3.6 percent in the first quarter of fiscal 2007 to 20.4 percent in […]
Regressive Tax
Sept 06, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has dropped a controversial fixed levy from mobile phones which would have hit the poorest phone users the hardest, but slapped a 7.5 percent tax on calls, telecom minister Rauf Hakeem told parliament Thursday. The government initially proposed a fixed 50 rupee charge which would have hit the […]
Sri Lanka leisure firms asked to list in Maldives
Sept 06, 2007 (LBO) – Maldives has asked Sri Lankan firms operating resorts in the atoll nation to sell a part of their stake through a stock market flotation, a senior minister said. Two of Sri Lanka’s top leisure groups — Aitken Spence & Co. Ltd and John Keells Holdings Ltd — have significant presence […]
Eyes Skinned
Sept 05, 2007 (LBO) – Fitch Sri Lanka said it was maintaining a rating watch on six regional banks which was imposed following a government announcement that they would be merged with two other newly created state banks. Fitch put five regional banks on rating watch ‘evolving’ indicating that the rating could be changed after […]
Seismic Eye
Sept 05, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka will shortly tender for two-dimensional seismic surveys off the southern tip of the island to look for new oil deposits, officials said. “Then we can get better terms for the remaining blocks,” Fowzie said. Three out of eight off-shore oil exploration blocks in the Northwestern Mannar basin which […]
Murali-less Sri Lanka fancy Twenty20 title
Sept 5, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lanka have the resources to win the world Twenty20 crown despite the absence of star off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan, their captain said Wednesday before leaving for South Africa. Skipper Mahela Jayawardena said Sri Lanka, the top limited-overs team in Asia and World Cup finalists in the Caribbean in April, needed […]
‘s Chandana quits in disgust
Sept 5, 2007 (AFP) – All-rounder Upul Chandana, one of Sri Lanka’s 1996 world cup winning team, on Wednesday announced he had quit international cricket and accused the selectors of treating him shabbily.“I was hoping to get selected for the world cup after doing consistently well in domestic cricket. It did not happen and when […]
Fast Links
Sept 05, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka Telecom, the island’s dominant fixed phone operator, has increased bandwidth to accommodate rapidly growing high-speed broadband ADSL connections and plans a further expansion by December, an official said. But SLT cannot give telecom service level agreements (SLAs) guaranteeing ADSL performance as many factors determining service quality are beyond […]
Green Buildings
Sept 04, 2007 (LBO) – Cement manufacturer Holcim™s Sri Lanka unit Monday announced that it had begun receiving entries for the company’s second sustainable construction awards competition in which the top prize is 100,000 US dollars. Entries in the competition, designed to promote environmentally friendly construction, can be submitted until February 2008, Edward Schwarz, general […]
Submarine Map
Sept 04, 2007 (LBO) – A Norwegian firm said it has been sub-contracted for two-dimensional seismic surveys of the seabed off Sri Lanka, as the island forges ahead to claim an extended continental shelf under international law. It is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange. SCAN Geophysical Monday announced that the company has been awarded […]
Cash Cycle
Sept 04, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lankan companies have invested millions of dollars to develop modern warehousing for tea sold at the Colombo auction, the world’s biggest, slashing lead times to hours or even minutes, an industry official said. They provide real time cataloguing and computerised systems that enable quick transfer of goods from producer […]