Category: Economy and Markets

Dec 21, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has generated 234,000 service sector jobs in the third quarter of 2009 from a year earlier, though 89,000 jobs were lost in industry, and 240,000 were lost in the farming sector, a government survey showed. Fernando says there are a large number of seasonal workers in agriculture. Industry […]

Dec 21, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka is to get about 350 million US dollars of aid from the Asian Development Bank next year, much of it going for the north and east which was ravaged by war, a senior official said. The ADB forecasts Sri Lanka’s economy will grow by about 4-4.5 percent this […]

Dec 21, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lankan businesses are compelled to look overseas to expand sales as the domestic market is too small, a senior corporate executive said, calling for government policies to support expansion abroad. Inward-looking economic policies are making it difficult for firms to build their own brands, said Ranjith Page, chief executive […]

Dec 19, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka will change the basket of goods in its most widely watched price index from next year and re-base it to reflect consumption patterns of a newer survey, an official said.The revised index itself was made ‘official’ suddenly at the height of an inflation bubble in April 2008, when […]

Dec 18, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s war refugee re-settlement efforts will get World Bank fund to re-build infrastructure and economic activities, in the north and east of the country which has emerged from a three decade long conflict. A 77 million US dollar credit will help 100,000 refugees in the north return to their […]

Dec 18, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s economic growth slowed to 4.2 percent in the third quarter of 2009 from 6.3 percent a year earlier, but was up from 2.1 percent in the second quarter, the government’s statistics office said. “In economic terms we have had a V-shaped recovery,” said deputy statistics director Nalini Kumarasinghe. […]

Dec 18, 2009 (LBO) – The head of Sri Lanka’s top business chamber has called for an end to tax exemptions given to public servants, saying it was unfair by hardworking private sector employees and also eroded government revenue.A discriminatory import duty structure that favours politically powerful local business interests against all consumers in the […]

Dec 17, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lankan people are being fooled by state subsidies when high inflation triggered by big budget deficits erodes their income, the head of Sri Lanka’s top business chamber said. “The idea of subsidies is an absolute myth,” said Anura Ekanayake, chairman, Ceylon Chamber of Commerce. Most people were not aware […]