Tag: Finance

Feb 01, 2012 (LBO) – Sri Lanka will not curb imports to stabilize the exchange rate, Central Bank Governor Nivard Cabraal said as a peg with the US dollar came under pressure from strong credit growth. “There has been an exponential growth in imports such as vehicles and gold and this is a reflection of […]

Jan 31, 2012 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s central bank said it would only have to pay a higher interest rate for International Monetary Fund loans exceeding 300 percent of the country quota, and lower balances would only attract a rate of a little over 1.0 percent. The IMF has effectively suspended its 2.6 billion US […]

Jan 31, 2012 (LBO) – Consumer prices in Sri Lanka’s capital rose 3.8 percent in January 2012 from a year earlier, slowing from 4.9 percent in December 2011, the state statistics office said. Prices measured by the Colombo Consumer Price Index rose 0.3 percent in January 2012 after rising 1.2 percent during December 2011. Annual […]

Jan 30, 2012 (LBO) – Sri Lanka may not need the remaining 800 million dollars of International Monetary Fund money since reserves are still high, economic development minister Basil Rajapaksa said. “When we borrow the money it goes into monetary reserves and they have to be invested in another country, for a small difference in […]

Jan 27, 2012 (LBO) – A series of construction contracts given to Chinese firms mostly with borrowed money from China which will have to re-paid by Sri Lanka, should have been awarded by open tender, a legislator has said. Harsha de Silva, a legislator representing Sri Lanka’s main opposition United National Party, said the commercial […]

Jan 26, 2012 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has to grow more food to reduce imports which will help strengthen the exchange rate, Treasury Secretary P B Jayasundera said, as the country lost almost a quarter of its foreign reserves defending a dollar peg. “There is no economic justification to import any longer the kind of […]

Jan 26, 2012 (LBO) – Sri Lanka should not intervene excessively to maintain a peg with the US dollar, economic development minister Basil Rajapaksa said as reserve losses mounted in a bid to keep the rupee at 113. 90 to the US dollar in the spot market. “I feel there must be a realistic value […]

Jan 26, 2012 (LBO) – The State of Qatar is in talks with Sri Lanka to build a toll expressway from the island’s main international airport to the northwestern coastal town on Kalpitiya, economic development minister Basil Rajapaksa said. Sri Lanka opened its first expressway to Galle in the south late last year. Officials say […]

Jan 26, 2012 (LBO) – A Sri Lankan business chamber is negotiating with immigration authorities to secure special passports for business people to help them cut through red tape during overseas travel. The National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka (NCCSL) is trying to secure a different type of passport business people recognised by chambers […]

Jan 25, 2012 (LBO) – The International Monetary Fund cut the forecast for world growth as a series of ‘stimulus’ measures by deficit spending failed, worsening debt, undermining confidence and pushing some nations to into sovereign credit trouble. Emerging economies will grow 5.4 percent in 2012 (down from an earlier forecast of 6.2 percent), with […]

Jan 23, 2012 (LBO) – Curtains came down on the five-day long Galle Literary Festival on Sunday with discussions on obsessive love, war and Indira Gandhi taking centre stage. Biographers Nayantara Sahgal and Katherine Frank shed light on the iron lady of South Asia, the iconic Indira Gandhi’s political career and how she exercised power […]

Jan 20, 2012 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s decision to raise taxes on exports in raw form and reduce those for raw material imports is to encourage local manufacture and value addition, Minister of Industry and Commerce Rishad Bathiudeen said. The island intends to make it more expensive to export rubber, timber and minerals in raw […]