Tag: Finance

Sri Lanka’s central bank is asking the country’s licensed money changers to raise more dollars to be allowed to continue in business. They are expected to buy foreign exchange from tourists and those who return from working abroad and deposit it in commercial banks. According to their license, money changers cannot sell foreign exchange back […]

September 12, 2006 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s economy grew at a blistering pace of 7.9 percent for the six months to June the Central Bank governor said, aided by growth in manufacturing, services and agriculture produce. Analysts say reserve growth has tapered off since mid 2006, and the government has ratcheted up dollar borrowings to […]

September 12, 2006 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has bagged 220 million dollars in direct investments for the six months to June, the island’s key promotional agency said Tuesday, with money mainly coming from telecommunications and IT sectors. However, the BOI says smaller investors are also difficult to monitor or control, with some cases of fraud […]

Sept 11, 2006 – (LBO) Sri Lanka’s recent economic growth performance fits well with the underlying theme of the upcoming Commonwealth Finance Ministers’ meeting, a top official said. “We have had economic growth of 8.1 percent in the first quarter and 7.7 percent is expected in the second quarter,” Deputy Governor of Sri Lanka’s Central […]

September 8, 2006 (LBO) – Sri Lanka Friday flagged off construction work on a road project which links the tsunami hit coastlines from the south up to the east of the island. The Matara-Wellawaya road, jointly funded by ADB and the European Union, is closely linked to a network of tsunami-affected roads to be rehabilitated […]

Sept 06 (LBO) – The coral atoll of Maldives was the easiest place to do business in South Asia, followed by Pakistan and Bangladesh, while Sri Lanka trailed at fourth place, in a ranking by the World Bank. Maldive Islands earned first place in four out of ten topics the Bank had used to measure […]

Sept 06 (LBO) – Once the leader in reform, Sri Lanka is now lagging other reforming economies in South Asia, and the country has become a more difficult place to do business, a World Bank report released today said. ‘Doing Business in 2007: How to Reform’ has found that only India and Pakistan had introduced […]

Sept 06 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s trade deficit expanded by more than 50 percent in the seven months to July, spurred by rapid import growth and falling exports, the Central Bank said. In July exports fell by 7.9 percent to 516 million US dollars, after striking port workers interrupted exports, but oil imports which come […]

August 31, 2006 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s consumer prices jumped to 15.3 percent in July, the Census & Statistics Department said Thursday, as prices of bread, fuel, cinema tickets rose to offset lower costs of vegetables. As a result the Colombo Consumer Price Index or CCPI ended at 4,650.0 in July. Prices of bread, wheat […]

The Central Bank’s Senior Deputy Governor and the Deutsche Bank Head of Communications to the Asia Pacific Region have responded to our story headlined ‘Prudential Norms’ on August 27 on central bank independence. We can but echo the words of Marriner Eccles, a governor on the Federal Reserve board, in his congressional testimony on January […]

August 27, 2006 (LBO) – Sri Lanka should have an independent central bank which can conduct prudent monetary policy in order to have low inflation, a prominent European economist said. “You know richer people, who can get the help of good accountants good advisors can normally avoid the biggest suffering even from inflation,” says Deutche […]

COLOMBO, Aug 18, 2006 (AFP) – Sri Lanka is expected to record its highest annual economic growth in 28 years despite escalating violence in the decades-old separatist conflict, analysts said. Security has deteriorated since December with aerial bombings, artillery attacks, suicide bombings and fierce face-to-face confrontations that have officially claimed at least 1,500 lives. However, […]