Tag: Finance

July 18, 2008 LBO) – Sri Lanka’s trade gap had expanded 79 percent to 2.5 billion US dollars in the five months to May 2008 on higher imports of oil while industrial exports slowed, government data showed. The Central Bank said 58 percent of the increase in imports came from oil and 21 percent from […]

July 18, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka is not ready to sign a trade pact with India, senior officials said as protests mounted from domestic business interests and a partner of the ruling coalition.Local business interests that fear Indian competition also spoke out against the deal. They said the government should first ensure that true […]

WASHINGTON, July 16, 2008 (AFP) – US consumer prices soared at the strongest pace in 26 years in June, rising 1.1 percent from May, the Labor Department said Wednesday. On a 12-month basis, CPI was up 5.0 percent in June and core CPI was 2.4 percent higher. Core prices excluding energy and food climbed 0.3 […]

July 16, 2008 (LBO) – US consumer prices hit a 26-year as Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke came under renewed fire from a US senator for printing money willy-nilly and stampeding the world into an inflation crisis. The US Bureau of Labour Statistics said 12-month consumer prices of urban consumers surged to 5.0 percent in […]

July 16, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has tightened its year-end growth target for the monetary base in 2008 to 11.75 percent from 12.50 percent, the island’s central bank, which is running a quantity targeting framework to counter inflation, said.In April 2008 the bank tightened targets further from its beginning-of-the year plan, after inflation spiked […]

July 14, 2008 (LBO) – Iran emerged as the biggest lender to Sri Lanka, displacing traditional top donors Japan and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), in the five months up to May 2008, aid commitments disclosed by the finance ministry show. Germany, which had earlier said it was cutting off aid to the island owing […]

July 11, 2008 (LBO) – The Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) to be signed between India and Sri Lanka in August will allow professionals to work in either country but with safeguards to meet local concerns, economists said.The CEPA deal will make it easier for Sri Lankan companies to invest in India in areas like […]

July 11, 2008 (LBO) – A top Sri Lankan businessman whose companies have invested overseas says the government should relax exchange controls to make it easier for local firms to invest abroad, especially India with which trade deals are being struck.“We need a system where the central bank gives us freedom to invest in India […]

July 11, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s finance ministry had to rely on bank overdrafts and additional domestic borrowing to bridge cash gaps in the first five months of 2008 as revenues were below target, a government report said. The finance ministry said the cash deficit forecast for its operations by the end of May […]

July 10, 2008 (LBO) – A one day token strike called by Sri Lanka’s opposition parties got off to a peaceful start with slightly reduced traffic in the capital Colombo and most public services operating as usual, officials and residents said.Sri Lanka’s state-run railways system’s chief Lalithasiri Gunaruwan said train services were operating normally but […]

July 10, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s post minister, one of a coterie of 108 ministers in the island, said he had personally got the postal service moving during a one-day token strike, while the head of an over-staffed state enterprise wished for strikes every day. There has been no general strike in the island […]

July 10, 2008 (LBO) – The dominance of Sri Lanka’s Western province which housed the capital Colombo, in the country’s economic activity has fallen below 50 percent in 2007, the island’s central bank said.Using gross domestic product (GDP) data compiled by the government’s statistics office, Sri Lanka’s central bank said the share of Western province […]