Tag: Finance

Sept 21, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s tax department is slowly regaining its reputation which had been tarnished by a tax scam and complaints of bullying tax payers, the island’s top Treasury official said Friday. “The image of the Inland Revenue Department is changing from being 100 percent bad to being slightly positive,” Treasury Secretary […]

Sept 20, 2007 (LBO) – A government minister blocked reporters from questioning officials about real losses made by a pension fund of private sector workers, as disturbing new information about its management in state hands continued to emerge. The Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF), Sri Lanka’s largest pension fund, is estimated to have made a 37 […]

Sept 19, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lankan opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe Wednesday accused the government of illegally channeling state funds to a new budget airline and a bank.He said the right of the Parliament to control public finances is a fundamental principle of democracy. The transfer of funds to set up the new state-owned budget […]

Sept 18, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s trade deficit has narrowed in July with oil imports slowing and exports growing by 33.9 percent, the Central Bank said Tuesday. Exports had grown to 690 million US dollars in July 2007 against 516 million US dollars in July. “The persistently strong demand for apparel has continued to […]

Sept 17, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has spent more than 200 million US dollars to prop up the rupee during the past four months in an intervention campaign analysts say helped worsen exchange and demand pressure. There are fears among some market analysts, that if the bond price is manipulated it will give opportunities […]

Sept 16, 2007 (LBO) – A World Bank economist said Sri Lanka should trim the budget deficit if it wanted to achieve eight percent economic growth and monetary policy should be tightened to reduce inflation. All this will take its toll on future growth. “Unfortunately I think policy makers are not quite clear about what […]

Sept 15, 2007 (LBO) – A top Sri Lankan property developer says real estate is a sound investment because house prices do not fall, and construction costs goes up rather than down. The Ceylinco group says the property market has been a shock absorber to act as a hedge against inflation and other economic concerns […]

Sept 15, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s central bank has cut the economic growth forecast for 2007 to 7.0 percent from an earlier 7.5 percent, a report said days after the government’s statistics office released the latest growth numbers. Sri Lanka’s economic expansion slowed to 6.2 percent in the first half of 2007 from a […]

Sept 14, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s top statisticians put forward a new theory on exchange rates and took on the central bank governor and Fed chairman Ben Bernanke in a bid to explain rising inflation with long discredited failed ideas. . Hidden Theory Questioned by journalists about the falling Sri Lanka rupee, especially at […]

Sept 13, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s economy expanded 6.4 percent in the second quarter clocking up a 6.2 percent growth for the first half, coming off record highs in 2006, the government’s statistics office said. The growth in gross domestic product (GDP) has slowed compared to an expansion of 7.8 percent in the first […]

Sept 12, 2007 (LBO) – A controversial buffer zone that banned re-building of homes of Sri Lankan victims near the coast after the December 2004 tsunami has forced fisher folk out of their traditional livelihood, a survey has found. “But there is urgent need to look around us not only look forward. There are still […]

Sept 12, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s department of meteorology has issued a tsunami warning to the country’s eastern, northern and southern coastal regions following an earthquake in Indonesia. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii issued a watch bulletin. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said if a tsunami is generated waves could reach Sri […]