Tag: Finance

July 9, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s privately-run bus operators said they would keep their buses on the road on July 10, ignoring the token strike call of a Marxist-Nationalist former ally of the ruling coalition. The Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) which popularized policies of wholesale government recruitment, indiscriminate subsidies and increased state intervention […]

July 07, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s main opposition United National Party (UNP) is backing calls for new salary hikes for the island’s already bloated state sector, continuing a tradition that has created a class of super citizens and high inflation in the country.The UNP and its trade union arm, the Jathika Sevaka Sangamaya (JSS), […]

July 06, 2008 (LBO) – One of the three top nature reserves in Sri Lanka, a biodiversity hotspot, is being threatened by encroachment and commercial cultivation involving corrupt politicians, bureaucrats and business, a new report says.“Once title is given, the land soon passes to the politically powerful or their cronies,” says Environmental Foundation Ltd., which […]

July 05, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s central bank which has debauched the rupee since its creation in 1950, has made a strong case for a stable national currency, but a top industrialist warned that high inflation was making the policy backfire on industry. Sri Lanka lost exchange rate stability shortly after 1950, when a […]

July 3, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Hayleys group has joined top global firms to lobby the eight leading industrial nations to make water availability a priority at an upcoming meeting in Japan next week, the company said. Hayleys is one of 19 companies that have signed the CEO Water Mandate, an initiative of the […]

July 03, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s private sector has called on the government to implement politically difficult reforms and austerity measures to put the economy on a better footing. Anura Ekanayake, deputy vice chairman of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, said the government should do reforms to correct the wrong policies that hinder growth […]

July 3, 2008 (LBO) – The World Bank has appointed Isabel Guerrero, country director for India as vice president for the South Asia region, replacing Praful Patel who retired on July 02, the multilateral lender said. “It is a most special privilege to be invited to take on this role in one of the most […]

July 2, 2008 (LBO) – Cutting fuel subsidies when the national budget is de-stabilized is a necessary move to keep the economy stable and development ticking, former Malaysian finance minister Daim Zainuddin has said.In Sri Lanka, left-oriented political parties led by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) pushed state policy towards subsidizing imported commodities from mid-2004 […]

July 02, 2008 (LBO) – The Sri Lankan government treasury secretary P B Jayasundera has described subsidies as an inefficient way of managing economic affairs and said the government was moving to reduce the burden of handouts with price increases in a range of commodities. “Any form of subsidy is inefficient,” Jayasundera, who is also […]

July 01, 2008 (LBO) – The former British High Commission property in Sri Lanka is for sale with the owners preferring the highest bidder to have a high pedigree as well, the auctioneers said. This could value the deal as much as 2.5 billion rupees, making it the single largest land auction in the island.The […]

July 01, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka must now switch to an “investment driven economy” with businesses and people ‘going lean’ to survive and come out of the difficult times the island is going through, a productivity expert said. Lean production and working methods will help increase productivity and the standard of living as well […]

July 01, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s central bank said inflation which hit the highest levels in the country’s record keeping history in the first half of 2008, may start to fall from August, in the wake of better monetary policy.Sri Lanka’s inflation measured by the Colombo Consumer’ Price Index rose to 28.2 percent in […]