Tag: economy

Sept 30, 2009 (LBO) – Consumer prices in Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo rose 0.7 percent in September from a year earlier, down from 0.9 percent in August, the government’s statistics office said.The monetary authority, which keeps the rupee pegged to the US dollar, has relaxed policy rates, but has been engaging in steady “quantity tightening” […]

Sept 29, 2009 (LBO) – Poor governance, weak institutions, high inflation, high interest rates and protectionism, are hindering efforts by Sri Lanka’s private sector to improve productivity, a trade promotion expert has said.Lloyd Yapa, a former government official who supervised an industrial export drive of the government at one time, also says companies should try […]

Sept 28, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s state revenues picked up in July, with taxes in the first seven months only 1.47 percent behind last year, but the budget gap continues to be wide, with current expenses growing 24.7 percent, the latest official data showed. The implied annualized overall deficit narrowed to 10.4 percent of […]

Sept 28, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s former Treasury Secretary P B Jayasundera has resumed his post with immediate effect after the President Mahinda Rajapaksa re-appointed him to the post, the department of government information said. Jayasundera had served as Treasury Secretary under two Pesidents. Sumith Abeysinghe, who was Treasury Secretary has been made Cabinet […]

Sept 28, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has met the key end-September quantitative targets under an International Monetary Fund program, Central Bank Governor Nivard Cabraal said.“We have met all the targets under the program,” Cabraal said. A key target is a ceiling on reserve money or the narrowest supply of money made up of circulating […]

Sept 27, 2009 (LBO) – The Sri Lanka government’s budget for 2010 which is usually presented to parliament in November may be delayed till after elections expected in April, a media report said.Another IMF mission is due in November. It is not clear whether the 2010 structural benchmark for December 31, 2010 will be dropped […]

PITTSBURGH, September 26, 2009 (AFP) – The International Monetary Fund foresees a stronger than anticipated recovery from the economic crisis, with global growth approaching three percent in 2010, world leaders said Friday.The IMF had estimated in July a global contraction of 1.4 percent in 2009, followed by sluggish growth of 2.5 percent in 2010, but […]

Sept 26, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s private sector industrial production rose 2.2 percent in in June 2009, from a year earlier, with food, wood products showing an upturn and apparels bottoming out, official data showed. Rubber goods production was down 3.2 percent. Cement was up 1.6 percent (down 14.1 percent in May) and building […]

Sept 26, 2009 (LBO) – The virtues of a currency board system were hotly debated at an annual confab of top economists in Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo, as the island emerged from its latest balance of payments crisis caused by an unstable peg. Sri Lanka was exposed to balance of payments crises after 1950 when […]

Sept 25, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s overvalued currency is hurting exports and a catch up in productivity inevitably points to more industrial job losses, private sector representatives have said.His comments came as an official survey by the government’s statistics office said 155,000 industrial jobs have been lost in the second quarter of 2009 from […]

Sept 24, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka is expected to spend around 0.75 percent on reconstructing war-torn areas in the north and east in 2010, and it would be outside the program target agreed with the International Monetary Fund, an official said. A 20-month program agreed with the IMF in July 2008, set a target […]

Sept 23, 2009 (LBO) – Detailed International Monetary Fund documents showing the underlying basis for a stand-by loan to Sri Lanka have not been released by a decision of the island’s government, an official said.A storm has brewing in Sri Lanka over the suppression of IMF documents. Muttukrishna Sarvananthan, from the Point Pedro Institute of […]