Tag: Finance

May 25, 2008 (LBO) – The world’s major ‘reserve currency’ central banks should stop money printing to end a monetary shock that is firing a global commodity bubble and food riots in poor countries, a new International Monetary Fund study has said. The money issued by major central banks such as the Federal Reserve and […]

May 12, 2008 (LBO) – A town in Sri Lanka’s southern coastal belt has improved its environment and the finances of its local government body through a garbage recycling project, officials said. The cash saved on garbage disposal and money earned through recycling is being used for road improvement by the Weligama urban council. In […]

May 8, 2008 (AFP) – A United Nations agency Thursday appealed for 36 million dollars to feed thousands of Sri Lankans displaced by fighting between troops and rebels amidst galloping global commodity prices. The World Food Programme (WFP) now feeds more than a million Sri Lankans, of whom 400,000 have been internally displaced. “The World […]

May 06, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s road development bureaucracy is hugely overstaffed and a drain on public funds and unable to effectively maintain the island’s road network, a senior government official says. Sirisena Amarasekera, secretary, ministry of highways and road development, says there are around 10,000 people, including maintenance workers, in highway and road […]

May 05, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s central bank is keeping interest rates suppressed and below the inflation rate to reduce government borrowing costs and maintain a high growth rate that presents a ‘rosy’ picture, a researcher says. “Galloping inflation is also due to suppression of the interest rate by the government,” says Muttukrishna Sarvananthan, […]

May 05, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s central bank, which earlier protested an International Monetary Fund study on external impacts on inflation, has welcomed comments by a top IMF official based on results which were further disaggregated. Sri Lanka has been buffeted by chronic high inflation and balance of payments crises since a central bank […]

May 02, 2008 (LBO) – The International Monetary Fund says it backs moves by Sri Lanka’s central bank to tighten monetary policy as well as ‘economically correct but politically difficult’ decisions by the island to reduce fuel and food subsidies. The head of IMF’s Asia Department David Burton says a recent IMF working paper on […]

May 02, 2008 (LBO) – The Sri Lankan government is running out of time to fix the economy, with inflation out of control and other economic fundamentals steadily deteriorating, a new research paper on the economy says. With the regime of President Mahinda Rajapakse nearing its half term (by November 2008) and the parliamentary election […]

May 01, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has signed up additional funds to augment a highway to the south of the island which is jointly financed by the Asian Development Bank and the Japan, the finance ministry said. The 90 million dollar supplementary loan will finance a 29.3 kilometre stretch on the Southern Highway starting […]

May 01, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has signed a deal with the Netherlands government to get eight billion rupees (44.9 million euro) in aid to build a fisheries harbour to accommodate deep sea trawlers and develop the island’s fishing industry. The port will be built in Dikowita on the western coast, fisheries minister Felix […]

April 30, 2008 (LBO) – The Federal Reserve money printing that has fired a commodity bubble causing malnutrition and food riots in poor countries is increasingly coming under fire, with mainstream media adding their voice to a growing flood of critics. After the sub-prime bubble started to unravel last July the Fed has cut rates […]

April 28, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s pioneer Unicode Sinhala news portal, Vimasuma.com and the Central Bank has teamed up to produce a series of educational discussions targeted at economics students and the public. The multimedia discussion series which can be viewed online at www.vimasuma.com is aimed at economics teachers, students of economics and others […]