Tag: economy

WASHINGTON, July 16, 2009 (AFP) – The Federal Reserve signaled Wednesday it sees an end this year to the brutal recession and hinted that it was preparing an “exit strategy” for its unprecedented stimulus efforts.The central bank raised its outlook for 2009 and 2010 economic output, projecting a rebound in the second half of 2009 […]

July 16, 2009 (LBO) – Developing countries need debt relief to overcome a global economic slump, and a non-aligned emergency bailout fund, Sri Lanka’s president Mahinda Rajapaksa has said.“The world is today confronted by a crisis that is essentially the creation of the financial markets of certain developed countries,” President Rajapaksa said in the published […]

July 15, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s interbank excess liquidity rocketed by more than 20 billion rupees this week, with fresh injections of central bank credit to the system in the manner of a quantity easing exercise.Excess liquidity in the banking system increased from 5.4 billion rupees Friday to 26.3 billion rupees Monday, but the […]

July 15, 2009 (LBO) – Inflation of Sri Lanka’s anchor currency, the US dollar, measured by the all urban consumer (CPI-U) index fell 1.4 percent in June from a year earlier, the Bureau of Labour Statistics said. In the month of June, inflation of the Sri Lanka rupee measured by the Colombo Consumer Price Index […]

July 13, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s key reverse repo rate would be held at 11.00 percent while bank lending rates were moving steadily down in response to rate cuts, the Central Bank said in its July monetary policy review. Foreign hedge funds were putting money back into government securities. In May Sri Lanka’s military […]

July 13, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s central bank, which brought inflation down to 0.9 percent in June, warned of higher inflation raising the possibility that it may lag behind better performing dollar pegged peers in the region. Inflation fell to 0.9 percent in June, the lowest since February 2004, when consumer inflation in Sri […]

July 13, 2009 (LBO) – Regional economic disparities in Sri Lanka declined further last year although the Western Province continued to dominate with 45.4 percent share in gross domestic product (GDP), the Central Bank said. Provinces with smaller GDP have grown faster but a few lag behind and need more support, it said in a […]

July 12, 2009 (LBO) – Australia has intercepted a boat with 73 Sri Lankan asylum seekers who have now been transferred to a detention centre in Christmas Island, a media report said. Authorities were now trying to find out why they made the voyage, the report said.The Age newspaper said many women and children were […]

July 12, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s electricity generation in April 2009 fell 2.2 percent to 773 million units (GigaWatt hours) from a year earlier, while diesel sales were down 10.7 percent, the latest government figures showed. Sri Lanka’s economic growth slowed to 1.5 percent in the first quarter of 2009 from 6.2 a year […]

July 11, 2009 (LBO) – Dropouts from Sri Lanka’s education system are doing a greater service to the nation than those who have had a free education from the state education system, a senior minister said.Deputy finance minister Sarath Amunugama said more than a million Sri Lankans were working abroad sending nearly three billion dollars […]

July 9, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has received an assurance from a US diplomat that its application for a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF)) would be viewed on economic factors alone, the island’s foreign ministry said. Yesterday the government presented more ‘supplementary estimates’ to parliament to increase spending. Officials say Sri Lanka […]