Tag: economy

May 17, 2010 (AFP) – Heavy rains forced the indefinite postponement of Sri Lanka’s military parade marking the first anniversary of its defeat of Tamil rebels, officials said Monday as flash floods killed four people. The island’s two main monsoon seasons run from May to September and December to February. The victory celebrations scheduled for […]

May 17, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s state revenues picked up sharply in February 2010 to 108. 6 billion rupees in the first two months, up 17 percent from a year earlier, containing the budget deficit at around last year’s level, despite rising current spending, official data showed. Current expenses rose 7.2 percent to 181.3 […]

May 14, 2010 (LBO) – The chairman of Sri Lanka’s largest bank, state-run Bank of Ceylon Gamini Wickramasinghe has been re-appointed amid a series of changes made to boards of state institutions following general elections in April. Wickramasinghe is head of Informatics, an information technology group and has a masters degree in systems analysis from […]

GROS ISLET, May 13, 2010 (AFP) – Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara said the team had no-one else to blame but themselves after a seven-wicket World Twenty20 semi-final loss to England here on Thursday. Last year’s losing finalists were all but out of the game after being restricted to 128 for six, having lost their […]

May 13, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s investment promotion agency will re-assess its strategy following the end of a long drawn out separatist war with plans for a stronger focus to attract investments from the United States and Europe, officials said. The Board of Investment of Sri Lanka now has a five-year corporate plan. But […]

May 13, 2010 (LBO) – India’s is keen to push head with a trade and services liberalization deal with Sri Lanka which was scuttled by protectionist forces in the island on the brink of signing, a media report said. There is already an Indo-Lanka Free Trade Arrangement which had liberalized a range of traded goods […]

May 12, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s state investment promotion agency is processing almost 500 million dollars of new deals mainly into leisure and is planning two investments zones in the former war-torn north of the island, officials said. Kulasekara said the end of the war had opened up two-thirds of the country’s beach areas […]

BRUSSELS, May 10, 2010 (AFP) – Europe and the IMF gave a major boost to world markets Monday with a trillion-dollar war chest to ease fears of a new recession, but governments faced pressure to clean up their fiscal houses. Some 440 billion euros would come from eurozone nations and 60 billion euros from the […]

May 10, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s exports grew 20 percent 629 million US dollars in February 2010 on the back of booming agricultural commodities while apparel, the country’s main industrial export, contracted 9.7 percent to 248.6, official data showed. The Central Bank said apparel exports however had improved from January. Earnings from tea grew […]

May 10, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s main pension fund of private citizens earned a large real return as the Central Bank brought inflation down in 2009, though the national debt expanded as the state could not inflate away debt and impoverish pensioners. In the 2009 annual report the Central Bank said the government should […]

RIGA, May 9, 2010 (AFP) – Seen from the eastern rim of the European Union, the looming austerity drive in crisis-afflicted Greece reads like old news. For almost two years, the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have brought in repeated draconian anti-crisis measures, slashing public spending and hiking taxes to try to dig […]

May 09, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s president Mahinda Rajapaksa who crushed a 30-year separatist war in the island and won landslide election last month will use his extensive executive powers to fix the economy, a powerful minister said. “The president used his executive powers in the last three years to finish the war,” Basil […]