Tag: economy

June 26, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s debt burden is a cause for concern with resort to foreign borrowings only providing temporary relief in bridging the fiscal deficit, RAM Ratings (Lanka) said. The rating agency said the growing loan interest payments are also of some concern for overall government finances especially at the prevailing higher […]

June 20, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s private sector credit had slowed to 15.1 percent by April 2008 following tight monetary policy, though state credit had spiked in that month, but inflation would slow after July, the Central Bank said. Till August 2007, credit to private sector has been growing at a rate of 25 […]

June 18, 2008 (LBO) – Rosy growth figures put out by government outfits are suspect, a Sri Lankan think tank has said, calling for the collection and analysis of socio economic data to be entrusted to independent authorities. The Point Pedro Institute of Development, said the outlook for the island economy is bleak given rising […]

June 14, 2008 (LBO) – The current oil bubble which has seen crude rising 700-pct since November 2001 is worse than the dot-com bubble which saw the Nasdaq composite index rising 640 percent before it crashed, a media report said. Food riots in poor countries have increasingly put pressure on the Federal Reserve to alter […]

June 13, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka could get 900 million US dollars from the World Bank over the next three years to build infrastructure in lagging regions, improve health, education and safety nets, the multilateral lender said. The World Bank’s executive directors had endorsed a country assistance strategy (CAS) covering the period from July […]

June 12, 2008 (LBO) – The European Union urged Sri Lanka to improve its human rights record and treatment of journalists as the country is set to re-apply for a trade concession extension later in the year. The EU was also helping build roads and do reconstruction but work was hampered due to a monopoly […]

June 12, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has slapped a minimum export price floor of 100,000 rupees (923 dollars) per metric tonne to block rice exports, information minister Anura Yapa said. World rice prices, which peaked in April, have since moderated. Global commodity prices have been booming amidst money printing in reserve currency countries, especially […]

June 12, 2008 (LBO) – Unprecedented borrowings from the central bank or ‘money printing’ to finance subsidies have caused inflation in Pakistan to go to a historic high, the country’s finance minister has said. Finance minister Naveed Qamar told Pakistan’s parliament that large subsidies not financed in the original budget had been given by the […]

June 11, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka will mark the World Day Against Child Labour this year on June 12 Thursday with activities to raise awareness about this year’s theme that education is the right response to child labour, the International Labour Organisation said. The ILO has estimated that some 165 million children between the […]

June 7, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka should have a holistic approach to avert the threat of the household food security of the vulnerable groups due to the prevailing food crisis, officials and economists have said. A global commodity bubble – fired by money printing in reserve currency countries in particular – has brought higher […]

June 06, 2008 (LBO) – The World Bank plans to give Sri Lanka a loan of 75.6 million dollars mainly to rebuild the homes of people in the war-ravaged north and east, the lending agency said in statement. Technical assistance will also be provided under the program to help meet the long term housing needs […]

June 05, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s central bank said its ‘core inflation’ index from which a number of items such as food had been dropped was 9.6 percent in May 2008 against ‘headline’ inflation of 26.2 percent. In May the ‘core’ index had grown 0.3 percent against 0.9 percent in April. The moving average […]