Tag: economy

July 3, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s central bank says its reserve money target for June has been achieved comfortably, even as emerging fiscal signals continued to unsettle market participants. Short term rates have also become volatile this week, reaching towards 40 percent again. The interbank market has become after several weeks of excess liquidity […]

June 30, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s economy would still grow by 7.5 percent this year despite first quarter growth sliding to 6.1 percent, the Central Bank has said, while a rising budget deficit pushed interest rates to new highs. Analysts also say a slowdown in reported growth numbers is inevitable partly because of statistical […]

June 29, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s inflation rose 3.2 percent in June, though the 12-month increase in consumer prices fell to 13.0 percent from 13.7 percent, the government’s statistics office said. The seasonally adjusted increase in the Colombo Consumer Prices fell to 17.0 percent from 17.4 percent in May, the Department of Census and […]

June 27, 2007 (LBO) – Areas bordering Sri Lanka’s western province, which is open to the world and has good infrastructure, grew fastest last year with a rapidly advancing service sector, the Central Bank has said. “In contrast, all the other provinces had per capita value added below the country average, ranging between 0.8 in […]

June 26 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Central Bank is to introduce a prosperity index to track the progress of the island’s provinces which are lagging behind and have high levels of poverty, Central Bank governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal said. It will also set up a results-based monitoring and evaluation system to see how development in […]

June 26, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka Tuesday scrapped value added tax on ten key food items in a bid to bring down food prices driven to high levels by money printing to finance the budget deficit last year.Last year the Central Bank printed 38.5 billion rupees to finance a fiscal deficit 8.4 percent of […]

June 25, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s reserve money targeting regime is showing results and volatility in overnight rates and inflation will moderate, Central Bank said Monday, days after short-term treasury yields went up by 30 basis points. The bank no longer operates a full policy rate regime, with the discount window nominally at 12.00 […]

June 23, 2007 (LBO) – Zimbabwe’s currency has started to freefall with heavy money printing to finance state expenses reports said, while Sri Lanka’s central bank has maintained some stability despite a widening budget deficit. Analysts are now predicting that Zimbabwe may soon see the end of a populist regime headed by Robert Mugabe that […]

June 20, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lankan surfers turned to proxy servers to access a pro-guerilla news website amidst claims that the government has started to practise net censorship in the country. The website, Tamilnet.com alleged that authorities have asked internet service providers to block access to the site in Sri Lanka. To access the […]

June 19, 2007 (LBO) — Sri Lankan government Tuesday narrowly secured parliamentary approval to raise the national budget amidst chaos in the house when two former ministers crossed over and joined opposition ranks.The Tigers have declined to comment on the allegations that over 15 million dollars was paid to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam […]

June 14, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s exports grew 11.5 percent and imports by 7.4 percent in the first four months of 2007, keeping the trade deficit at last year’s level, but the gap in the month of April itself widened, the Central Bank said.In April exports grew 6.8 percent to 535 million dollars, slower […]

June 14, 2007 (LBO) – The United Nations Habitat section has teamed up with Sri Lanka’s urban development ministry to improve living conditions of low income families living in the capital city’s slums. The program was launched by the UN Human Settlement Program with the help of Ministry of Urban Development and Emerging Markets Group […]