Category:
Foreign Flavour
Mar. 03 (LBO) – Sri Lanka is looking at the possibility of getting into a partnership with foreign governments to explore oil off the island’s western coast, a senior official said Friday. Two rounds of seismic surveys conducted by Norway’s TGS-NOPEC have shown that Sri Lanka may have oil and natural gas reserves in the […]
Tourists flock to Sri Lanka in Jan
Mar. 02 (LBO) — Sri Lanka’s tsunami-hit hospitality industry made a comeback in January, as holidaymakers flocked to the island. However, internal battles to revamp marketing efforts and restructure the industry remain. Arrivals to Sri Lanka, famed for its beaches and eco-tourism, in January this year were up 36.8 percent over 2005 to 52,231 travellers. […]
Excessive rain curbs Sri Lankan tea production
Mar. 02 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s tea production for January dipped to 24.7 million kilos from 26.0 million kilos a year earlier due to excessive rain, a commodity broker said Thursday. January production shows a slight increase over December figure of 23.3 million kilos, but Sri Lanka’s crop has been on the downward slope since October […]
Off Duty
Mar02. (LBO) — Sri Lanka’s second wireless local loop operator says it has lobbied the authorities to scrap a tax on CDMA handset imports.“We have written to the Board on Investment and the regulator.We are expecting a positive response soon,” Lanka Bell Managing Director Suren Goonawardene told LBO. The government last week wrote to the […]
Sri Lanka picks up Rs. 19.4 billion cheque from Japan
Mar. 02 (LBO) – Sri Lanka Thursday signed up for Rs. 19.4 billion loans from Japan to develop three key infrastructure projects, the finance ministry said. The concessionary finance package will be split between the Galle port development project (Rs. 13.75 billion), pro-poor eastern infrastructure development project (Rs. 3.95 billion) and the tourism resources improvement […]
Big Bills
Mar. 01 (LBO) — Swedish telco operator Telia AB’s Sri Lankan subsidiary on Wednesday reported a 66 percent drop in six months to December profits, on higher CDMA related administrative, distribution and depreciation costs. The private wireless local loop operator (WLL) has seen its subscriber growth soar to 188,000 customers after securing a license to […]
Island Call
Mar. 01 (LBO) — Fixed line giant Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) will add the Maldivian incumbent telco operator to its list of regional clients, commissioning an undersea cable by late 2006. Tenders for the 10 gigabit undersea cable project are now being evaluated, SLT Deputy Chief Operating Office C B R Perera told LBO on […]
Rising costs of electricity, firewood and milk tea fail to push Sri Lanka’s inflation
Feb. 18 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s annual inflation rate for February slipped to 10.3 percent from 11.1 percent in January, despite high costs of firewood, electricity and milk tea, the Census & Statistics Department said Tuesday. The government uses the 12-month moving average – as measured by the Colombo Consumer Price Index (CCPI) – to […]
Illiteracy, no jobs, high risk activities among South Asia’s young could stifle progress
Illiteracy, no jobs and high risk behaviour among South Asia’s young people could affect the region’s progress and development, the World Bank says. About 20 percent of South Asia’s population is between 15 and 24, 30 percent are illiterate and they account for half of the unemployed in the region. The World Bank is meeting […]
Piggy Bank
Feb. 28 (LBO) – Sri Lanka is set to launch a new development bank in April to promote future reconstruction and development work, a top official said Tuesday. Known as the ‘Lanka Putra’, the government-owned specialised bank plans to raise deposits locally and overseas to fund small and medium scale entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka. “The […]
Looking Abroad
Feb. 28 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Sanasa Development Bank is looking for foreign money to bring its capital up to the new Central Bank core capital requirements. Corrected: accounting period -LBO Newsdesk: LBOEmail@ General Manager T A Gajaba says they are hoping to raise around Rs700 million from a consortium of foreign investors. Sanasa, a […]
E-mail Service
Feb 28. (LBO) — Sri Lanka™s state run Postal Department is scouting for Rs.25 million in private investment to launch a dedicated business mail service The planned business mail service will allow commercial establishments to purchase postage over the internet and use digital encoding or barcodes instead of stamps and even addresses on their mail. […]