Tag: economy

July 30, 2013 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s tax revenues are picking up helped by stronger customs collections, Treasury Secretary P B Jayasundera said.Sri Lanka’s state revenues were 51 billion rupees below target in the first four months Jayasundera said revenues were better in June and July with a pick in vehicle imports also contributing. Sri […]

July 29, 2013 (LBO) – Sri Lanka is hoping to cut the budget deficit to 4.0 percent of gross domestic product and generate a 2.0 percent revenue surplus, Treasury Secretary P B Jayasundera said.Sri Lanka ran a 6.4 percent of gross domestic product overall deficit in the budget in 2012 and a 1.4 percent revenue […]

July 29, 2013 (LBO) – Foreign direct investment flows to Sri Lanka in the first half of 2013 reached 430 million US dollars and the full year was expected to bring 2.0 billion US dollars, investment promotion minister Lakshman Abeywardena said. The money had come mainly from Chinese and Hong Kong based companies with top […]

July 26, 2013 (LBO) – Accounts of 18 state enterprises and agencies had been disclaimed by auditors, while another 04 had adverse opinions, some for two years running, while some others had not even submitted annual reports, a parliamentary report said. An adverse audit opinion refers to an occasion when an auditor finds enough information […]

July 26, 2013 (LBO) – Anoop Singh, director of the International Monetary Fund’s Asia Pacific Department and one-time country representative of Sri Lanka is to retire. “Anoop’s departure will deprive the Fund of one its most distinguished staff members, and his friends of a hugely admired colleague,” IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said in a […]

FRANKFURT, July 25, 2013 (AFP) – Loans to businesses in the debt-mired eurozone tumbled in June, the European Central Bank said Thursday, weakening a key component of any economic recovery. Private sector loans dropped 1.6 percent last month in a year-on-year comparison, the ECB said, after a 1.1 percent decline in May. Loans to households […]

July 24, 2013 (LBO) – Sri Lanka is holding its policy interest rates at 9.00 percent to give money to banks with credit to state starting to ease, which will help private borrowing, the Central Bank said. Sri Lanka’s private borrowings and investment have been crowded out and investments by heavy government borrowing from banks […]

CIDAUN, July 24, 2013 (AFP) – Rescuers searched the seas off Indonesia’s Java island Wednesday for possibly dozens of asylum-seekers missing after their Australia-bound boat sank, leaving at least three dead, with 157 saved, an official said.Hundreds have drowned making the journey — as recently as last week a boat sank, killing four people — […]

July 22, 2013 (LBO) – Sri Lanka is to curb the expansion of self-service supermarkets, a media report said shortly after new taxes were imposed on privately owned chains.Sri Lanka’s privately owned Hiru radio channel quoting President Mahinda Rajapaksa as saying that small traders and individual sellers were being displaced by supermarkets. “The vegetable lady […]

July 22, 2013 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s credit profile has stabilized but external debt and debt servicing costs are rising, Moody’s Investors Services, which has rated the country ‘B1’ said in a credit update.About 73 percent of total spending was current spending, though there were some improvements. Of the current spending 91 percent was for […]

COLOMBO, July 17, 2013 (AFP) – Multi-million-dollar casinos planned for Colombo have boosted Sri Lanka’s ambitious hopes of becoming Asia’s new gambling hotspot, but the projects still face political and religious opposition. “In the alcohol and tobacco industries, we have a good idea of how much is produced, what the sales are and more importantly […]

WASHINGTON, July 17, 2013 (AFP) – US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke reiterated Wednesday that the Fed stimulus could be wound up next year if economic growth remains steady as forecast.The surge in rates, economists worry, could itself slow the recovery by slowing demand in the recovering housing sector, which has become a key contributor […]