Category: Economy

July 14, 2012 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has cut excessively high taxes on several imported foods improving the food freedoms of the poorest sections of the population and has also allowed cooking gas prices to fall. Sri Lanka was pushed into a balance of payments crisis in 2011 by credit taken to manipulate oil prices […]

July 11, 2012 (LBO) – Sri Lanka is holding its key interest rates at which money is injected into the economy at 9.75 percent amid rising inflation, though credit and money supply growth is starting to slow, the Central Bank said. In February energy prices were raised, the exchange partially floated to reduce the need […]

July 07, 2012 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has lost money by buying Greece government bonds for its foreign reserve portfolio but returns on other assets have offset the losses, the Central Bank said. Sri Lanka has a de facto peg with the US dollar and aggressive investment strategies involving diversifying out of dollar assets can […]

July 05, 2012 (LBO) – Two sugar mills expropriated by the state last year has begun to burden ordinary citizens with the finance ministry channeling 557 million rupees from taxes extracted from the people to the firms. A mid-year fiscal report to parliament revealed that 550 million rupees had been given to cover day to […]

July 04, 2012 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has spent 70 billion rupees on highways, power, water and sanitation in the first five months of the year, with 50 billion rupees going to roads, a finance ministry report said. The finance ministry in a mid-year fiscal report said 36.8 billion rupees was spent on national roads, […]

July 04, 2012 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s state investment promotion agency said it had inked a deal with a Singapore led consortium to build a 3 billion US dollar tourism city in Katana, north of the capital Colombo. Earlier reports had said that Sun City, a South Africa based firm will build an 800 million […]

July 02, 2012 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s budget deficit has doubled in the first four months of 2012, with current spending growing at twice the rate of tax revenues and leading to unprecedented reliance on bank financing, official data show. Total revenues grew 7.2 percent to 305.5 billion rupees up to April 2012 from a […]

July 02, 2012 (LBO) – India has committed 740. 8 million US dollars out of 1,015 million US dollars of foreign financing to Sri Lanka in the first four months of 2012, including 275. 1 million US dollars as an outright grant, official data shows. The massive grant, which is unusual in Sri Lanka’s recent […]

July 02, 2012 (LBO) – Legal hard liquor production has fallen 2. 6 percent in the first five months of 2012, from a year earlier, but soft liquor (mainly beer) had risen 12.5 percent the finance ministry said in a report. Sri Lanka had seen a surge in beer sales partly due to stronger tourism […]