Tag: economy

LONDON, November 26, 2009 (AFP) – Global equities slumped Thursday, with Europe down three percent after Dubai’s shock call to suspend the debt of a key state company fuelled anxiety about excessive public borrowing, analysts said. The government of Dubai shocked financial markets on Wednesday when it said it would ask creditors of its Dubai […]

Nov 25, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s revenue office will not collect back-taxes from areas that have emerged from a 30-years war but will set up branches to start tax collection as economic activities pick up, an official said.“We are not trying to collect taxes due in previous years,” commissioner general of Sri Lanka’s Inland […]

Nov 25, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s inflation may top 10 percent next year unless corrective action is taken, and recent trends in the island’s most widely watched index should not make policymakers complacent, economists have said. Prices in Sri Lanka’s capital, measured by a revised Colombo Consumer Price Index, rose 1.4 percent in October […]

Nov 25, 2009 (LBO) – The global move towards fair value accounting might prove difficult for south Asian countries as they lack active markets to support such valuations, a senior Sri Lankan accountant said. Reyaz Mihular, chairman of the Accounting and Auditing Standards Committee of South Asian Federation of Accountants, said a key point of […]

TEHRAN, November 23, 2009 (AFP) – Iran’s central bank chief said on Monday that the country has gained five billion dollars by replacing the US dollar with the euro in its currency basket, state-owned English language Press TV reported.“Iran has considerably reduced the total of US dollars in its currency basket,” Mahmoud Bahmani said at […]

November 22, 2009 (AFP) – The Sri Lankan government has failed to make adequate welfare provision for the 136,000 Tamil civilians it plans to release from internment camps, rights activists and opposition parties said Sunday. Heeding international calls for the camps to be closed, the authorities said the remaining detainees — held since the military […]

Nov 20, 2009 (LBO) – Visiting International Monetary Fund officials said Sri Lanka’s inflation is seen staying low with no sign of demand-driven inflationary as the economy and credit are still growing too slowly to generate inflation. IMF mission chief Brian Aitken said economic growth has been better than expected when it approved a 2.6 […]

Nov 19, 2009 (LBO) – A new private equity fund targeting Sri Lanka will focus on supporting management buyouts, and is upbeat on opportunities in retailing, tourism and information technology as the island recovers from a 30-year war, officials said.Investors who enter the Leopard private equity fund will have to look up money for ten […]

Nov 18, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Central Bank has cut its main policy rate that injects liquidity into the banking system by 75 basis points to 9.75 percent and the rate at which it drains liquidity by 50 basis points to 7.50 percent. The Central Bank said it had bought dollars from the market […]

WASHINGTON, November 17, 2009 (AFP) – The International Monetary Fund announced Monday it has sold two tonnes of gold to the central bank of the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius for nearly 72 million dollars.The sale came as gold prices surged Monday to an all-time high of 1,136.72 dollars per ounce. The sale to Mauritius […]

Nov 16, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s state revenues rebounded to 522.0 billion rupees in September 2009 up 12.1 percent from a year earlier, but year end targets may miss revised estimates, the Central Bank said.For the first nine months of the year fiscal deficit was 322.6 billion rupees or 6.5 percent of gross domestic […]

Nov 15, 2009 (LBO) – Firms from the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh have showed interest in investing in Sri Lanka and called for direct flights between the state capital Bhopal and Colombo, officials said.Sri Lanka can benefit by having daily flights between Bhopal, Colombo and Bangkok to cater to Sri Lankan as well […]