Tag: Finance

April 22, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lankan exporters have been slapped with a host of new fees that were increasing their costs, and reducing their competitiveness, an official said. In the last few months, shippers have been called to pay a growing number of new fees by shipping lines, freight forwarders and others in the […]

April 20, 2007 (LBO) – Authorities in Sri Lanka are trying to counter growing public awareness that 38.5 billion rupees were printed to finance the budget deficit last year, which also drove inflation to 19.3 percent by December, despite the information being publicly available. Deputy Finance Minister Ranjith Siyambalapitiya was responding to a news story […]

April 19, 2007 (LBO) – The Sri Lanka rupee fell to a new low of 110.50 to the dollar in early trading Thursday dealers said, while short-term interest rates eased. The rupee had ended just short of 110 to the dollar earlier in the month with high rupee interest rates encouraging exporters to convert to […]

April 18, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s new investment promotion chief said Wednesday he wants to speed up approvals but also be more selective in targeting investors and eliminate attitudes that favour foreigners. Much land earmarked for prospective investors in investment zones, or expansion of existing projects, had not been used while the BOI told […]

April 17, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has spent 54 cents out of every tax rupee collected last year on government jobs and pensions, while plans are afoot to hire 20,000 more people into the already bloated public sector. Official data has revealed that last year the government spent 233 billion rupees on government salaries, […]

GENEVA, April 16, 2007 (AFP) – The number of people displaced within their own countries by conflicts doubled last year, pushing the global total to 24.5 million, an international monitoring centre said Monday. Apart from hundreds of thousands of people in Lebanon, other large-scale returns were reported during 2006 in South Sudan (800,000), the Democratic […]

April 15, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s state corporation debt to the banking system has doubled in 2006, with energy firms accounting for most of it, the Central Bank said in its annual report. The bank called on the government to consider promoting Public- Private Partnerships as a viable alternative financing mechanism for developing much-needed […]

April 11, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s trade deficit narrowed to 144.5 million dollars in February despite oil import costs moving up, the central bank said Wednesday. The Central Bank said reserves had grown to 2,578 million dollars (2.9 months of imports) by end February with balance of payments surplus of 53 million dollars. The […]

April 10, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s tight quantity targeting regime is paying off, and the central bank said Monday it would continue with the ‘current monetary policy stance’. The next monetary policy statement would be released on May 16. The February statement was brought forward by one day. Updated Perhaps fittingly, the entire April […]

April 10, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s main port has struck a 3-year agreement with trade unions to raise the minimum monthly salary by 3,000 rupees, a senior official said Tuesday.The dispute dragged on for over ten days as the government said port workers are some of the better paid employees in the public sector, […]

April 07, 2007 (LBO) – Tax payers need not fear the Inland Revenue Department, according to Sri Lanka’s chief tax officer who faces the daunting task of raising more revenue for a country that is already projecting a budget deficit as big as 9.2 percent of the economy. The department wants to be tax payer-friendly […]

April 6, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lanka is offering drastic customs duty cuts to help over 20,000 civil servants import new cars, the finance ministry said Friday. The move was to fulfil an election promise made in 2005. Senior public officials, including police and military personnel, with over five years of service will be entitled […]