Category: Economy and Markets
Sri Lanka sees US$500mn coming in to leisure
May 12, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s state investment promotion agency is processing almost 500 million dollars of new deals mainly into leisure and is planning two investments zones in the former war-torn north of the island, officials said. Kulasekara said the end of the war had opened up two-thirds of the country’s beach areas […]
” in demand
May 12, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lankan shares closed higher Wednesday as retailers booked profits and re-invested in small-cap companies or ‘penny stocks’ as cheap shares are known, while Nawaloka and Galadari Hotel shares were heavily traded, brokers said. Commercial Bank of Ceylon closed flat at 242. 00 rupees, Hatton National Bank closed at 233.00 […]
Sri Lanka Treasuries yields fall
May 12, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka Treasuries yields fell at Wednesday’s auction though not all maturing bills were sold to real buyers, the government’s debt office, which is a unit of the Central Bank said. The 3-month yield fell to 06 basis points to 8.18 percent, the 6-month yield fell 09 basis points to […]
‘s big spenders on the backfoot after trillion dollar rescue
BRUSSELS, May 10, 2010 (AFP) – Europe and the IMF gave a major boost to world markets Monday with a trillion-dollar war chest to ease fears of a new recession, but governments faced pressure to clean up their fiscal houses. Some 440 billion euros would come from eurozone nations and 60 billion euros from the […]
Sri Lanka shares becalmed
May 11, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lankan stocks closed flat Tuesday with the market around all-time high levels and investors searching for shares with low prices compared with earnings, brokers said. The All Share Price Index closed at 4,215. 22, down 0.16 percent (6.82 points) while the more liquid Milanka index rose 0.02 percent (0.83 […]
Sri Lanka pension fund earns real returns
May 10, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s main pension fund of private citizens earned a large real return as the Central Bank brought inflation down in 2009, though the national debt expanded as the state could not inflate away debt and impoverish pensioners. In the 2009 annual report the Central Bank said the government should […]
Sri Lanka exports up on commodity boom; imports recover
May 10, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s exports grew 20 percent 629 million US dollars in February 2010 on the back of booming agricultural commodities while apparel, the country’s main industrial export, contracted 9.7 percent to 248.6, official data showed. The Central Bank said apparel exports however had improved from January. Earnings from tea grew […]
Sri Lanka stocks close flat, Dialog heavily traded
May 10, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lankan shares closed flat Monday as gains on small and midcap shares were offset by price drops on selected high value stocks, while Dialog Telekom shares rose after it returned to profitability, brokers said. The All Share Price Index closed at 4,222.04, down 0.03 percent (1.09 points), while the […]
Sri Lanka forex reserves lower in February
May 10, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s foreign reserves fell to 5,032 million US dollars in February 2010 from 5,135 million US dollars in January, which was equal to about 5. 5 months of past imports, the Central Bank said. Reserves with balances at the Asian Clearing Union (ACU), a regional arrangement of non-convertible currencies, […]
Sri Lanka will use presidential powers to fix economy: minister
May 09, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s president Mahinda Rajapaksa who crushed a 30-year separatist war in the island and won landslide election last month will use his extensive executive powers to fix the economy, a powerful minister said. “The president used his executive powers in the last three years to finish the war,” Basil […]
‘s Baltic states
RIGA, May 9, 2010 (AFP) – Seen from the eastern rim of the European Union, the looming austerity drive in crisis-afflicted Greece reads like old news. For almost two years, the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have brought in repeated draconian anti-crisis measures, slashing public spending and hiking taxes to try to dig […]
Sri Lanka partly shielded from Greek crisis by IMF, donor loans: S&P
May 08, 2010 (LBO) – A fiscal and monetary prudence program backed by the International Monetary Fund and donor loans will partly shield Sri Lanka from the fallout of a European credit confidence crisis, a rating agency has said. Sri Lanka hit a balance of payments crisis in late 2008 and some foreign lenders refused […]