May 31, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Aitken Spence group, which has interests in tourism, shipping, power and plantations said profits rose 20.7 percent to 754.4 million rupees in the March 2011 quarter, with revenues flat at 6.
9 billion rupees. In the full year to March the group’s revenues rose 4.0 percent to 25.1 billion rupees and profits rose 23.
4 percent to 2.53 billion rupees.
Aitken Spence said performance was helped by strong growth in tourism. The group owns or operates hotels in Sri Lanka, Maldives, India and Oman. Tourism arrivals to Sri Lanka have surged following the end of a war in 2009.
“I welcome the spirited and upbeat sentiment in the economy and believe that the next few years will bring the transformation of Sri Lanka to a truly competitive emerging economy,” Aitken Spence chairman Harry Jayawardena said in a statement.
“For Aitken Spence, our advantage will be on our home ground and this will be reflected in our interests within Sri Lankan economy.
“I can say with certainly that we will invest to expand our existing positions of strength while also aggressively exploring fresh opportunities for diversification in to growth sectors of the economy.”
The group had it has fully refurbished three ‘Herit