Tag: economy

Jan 26, 2012 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has to grow more food to reduce imports which will help strengthen the exchange rate, Treasury Secretary P B Jayasundera said, as the country lost almost a quarter of its foreign reserves defending a dollar peg. “There is no economic justification to import any longer the kind of […]

Jan 26, 2012 (LBO) – Sri Lanka should not intervene excessively to maintain a peg with the US dollar, economic development minister Basil Rajapaksa said as reserve losses mounted in a bid to keep the rupee at 113. 90 to the US dollar in the spot market. “I feel there must be a realistic value […]

Jan 26, 2012 (LBO) – The State of Qatar is in talks with Sri Lanka to build a toll expressway from the island’s main international airport to the northwestern coastal town on Kalpitiya, economic development minister Basil Rajapaksa said. Sri Lanka opened its first expressway to Galle in the south late last year. Officials say […]

Jan 25, 2012 (LBO) – The International Monetary Fund cut the forecast for world growth as a series of ‘stimulus’ measures by deficit spending failed, worsening debt, undermining confidence and pushing some nations to into sovereign credit trouble. Emerging economies will grow 5.4 percent in 2012 (down from an earlier forecast of 6.2 percent), with […]

Jan 23, 2012 (LBO) – Curtains came down on the five-day long Galle Literary Festival on Sunday with discussions on obsessive love, war and Indira Gandhi taking centre stage. Biographers Nayantara Sahgal and Katherine Frank shed light on the iron lady of South Asia, the iconic Indira Gandhi’s political career and how she exercised power […]

Jan 20, 2012 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s decision to raise taxes on exports in raw form and reduce those for raw material imports is to encourage local manufacture and value addition, Minister of Industry and Commerce Rishad Bathiudeen said. The island intends to make it more expensive to export rubber, timber and minerals in raw […]

Jan 19, 2012 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s post-war economic rebound is slowing and financial problems in key Western markets could reduce demand for the island’s exports and hit earnings from worker remittances and tourism, the World Bank said. Given the possibility of further weakening in the global economy, efforts at greater revenue mobilization particularly in […]

Jan 18, 2012 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has signed co-operation deals with Qatar Holdings LLC, a sovereign wealth fund and its wholly owned real property unit following a visit to the island by the emirate’s ruler, the foreign ministry said. Qatar Diar Real Estate Investment Company has signed a deal with Sri Lanka’s Board of […]

Jan 15, 2012 (LBO) – Talks between India and Sri Lanka on fisheries have ended with no deal on firm action to stop poaching by south Indian fishermen in the island’s northern waters. “Acknowledging that fisheries involved the socio-economic and livelihood dimensions of the fishermen living in coastal areas in India and Sri Lanka, the […]

Jan 13, 2012 (LBO) – Sri Lanka is expecting most of the two billion US dollars of foreign direct investment targeted for 2012 to flow into infrastructure with 400 million US dollars going into tourism, an official said. Head of Sri Lanka’s Board of Investment, M M C Ferdinando said about a billion US dollars […]

Jan 13, 2012 (LBO) – Sri Lanka will expand a food stamp scheme to former war zones in the east adding an estimated 100,000 families to 1. 5 million already on the scheme, deputy economic development minister Lakshman Abeywardene said. “We did not want to remove the program until their incomes are stable. “We have […]

Jan 12, 2012 (LBO) – India will help rebuild 49,000 houses of war refugees and estate workers in Sri Lanka with a 260 million US dollar grant, information minister Keheliya Rambukwelle said. The Indian grant will be used in former war zones in the North and Eastern provinces of the island and in the Central […]