Economic
As part of its efforts to revive the economy and reduce the COVID-19 impact, the Government yesterday eased import restrictions on several product categories linked to exports and production of import substitution goods but retained the ban on vehicles.
The Ministry of Urban Development, Water Supply and Housing Facilities, the Urban Development Authority (UDA), and CHEC Port City of Colombo signed a tripartite agreement this week for the construction of a marina at Port City.
කොරෝනා වෛරසය නිසා අඩපණ වූ දේශීය ක්රියාකාරකම් මෙම වසරේ සිව්වැනි කාර්තුවේදී සාමාන්ය තත්ත්වයට පත්වනු ඇතැයි ශ්රී ලංකා මහ බැංකුව අපේක්ෂා කරයි.
Reuters: Shares rose on Friday, lifted by gains in industrial and consumer stocks. The benchmark stock index closed up 0.32% at 4,799.89. Stocks gained 8.1% this week, but the index is still down 21.7% for the year.
Sri Lanka’s merchandise exports have fallen by 65% to $ 277.4 million in April, a historical decrease largely caused by the impact of shutting down factories due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Colombo stock market showed its resilience within a week of early battering recouping lost ground and emerging stronger thanks to positive investor sentiments brokers and analysts said yesterday.
The Sri Lanka College of Microbiologists (SLCM) has given its recommendations for reopening the country to tourists during the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak and insisted it is imperative that suggestions and recommendations from the health sector are sought and implemented.
Tourism Minister Prasanna Ranatunga has requested health authorities to provide guidelines to reopen hotels and restaurants, which have been closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bloomberg: Sri Lanka’s dollar bonds have been the worst-performing sovereign notes in Asia this year. But BNP Paribas Asset Management and Union Investment Privatfonds GmbH say it might now be time to buy.
මාස 06 ක කාලයක් සඳහා බලපැවැත්වෙන පරිදි මෙරටට ආනයනය කරන අත්යවශ්ය ආහාර ද්රව්ය රැසක වෙළඳ බදු ඉහළ දමා තිබෙනවා. මෙම බදු ඉහළ දැමීම අද (22) දිනයේ සිට ක්රියාත්මක වේ.
Taking an optimistic view, the Central Bank yesterday dismissed recent volatilities in sovereign bond yields insisting that the Government was focused on swap arrangements and syndicate financing rather than international financial markets to finance debt for this year and expressed confidence that despite the COVID-19 setback Sri Lanka would grow by 1.5% in 2020.
Releasing a statement yesterday, the monetary authority said the Government was “dismayed” by inferences that Sri Lanka is at risk of falling into a sovereign debt crisis by comparing Sri Lanka with other sovereigns which are said to be in similar situations.
“The Government wishes to categorically deny such baseless claims, and would like to reiterate to all stakeholders that Sri Lanka will duly honour all its debt service obligations in the period ahead.”
The statement argued the recent volatilities in yield levels of Government of Sri Lanka’s International Sovereign Bonds (ISBs) during the COVID-19 pandemic period were no different to what has been observed across a majority of emerging and frontier market economies.
“It is noteworthy that despite such volatility, global institutional investors, fund managers and analysts recommend Sri Lankan debt instruments for investment, while remaining confident of Sri Lanka’s credit quality.”
The Government also stressed the unintended delay in holding the General Elections and the submission of the Government budget should not be considered as leading to any policy uncertainty or procedural standoff, but a result of the health policy response to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.
The statement reiterated the argument that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is constitutionally empowered to authorise Government operations in the absence of an annual budget for a period up to three months after convening the Parliament following the elections.
This allowed Government operations to function without any hindrance, and any uncertainty surrounding the date of holding the General Elections will be resolved after the ruling by the Supreme Court in the coming days, it added.
In the meantime, the statement claimed the Government has already introduced measures to curtail expenditure, while the delay in presenting the Government budget automatically limits the space for additional expenditure for this year.
“Further, the cost of Government financing from both domestic and external sources has markedly declined so far during 2020. The Government has taken proactive measures in mobilising funds from multiple sources of market based and official sources of financing to effectively improve the terms and conditions of financing.”
“Given volatile market conditions across the globe, the issuance of an international bond by the Government is not anticipated in the near term, thereby rendering the current yields observed in the international bond market irrelevant. The focus of financing will be to further explore bilateral and multilateral sources to benefit both risk and cost considerations of debt management, and these discussions are well underway.”
Further, the country is in the process of exploring swap facilities with regional central banks, while arrangements are being made for syndicate financing with identified foreign sources, the statement added.
The Government has decided to waive off three months of rent of all duty free shops and service providers at Bandaranaike International Airport due to closure on account of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Board of Investment (BOI) yesterday said Sri Lanka has attracted over $500 million worth of orders for the production of personal protective equipment (PPEs), and expressed confidence the value will top $1 billion in the near future.
The Colombo Bourse sustained its upward momentum for the fifth consecutive market day yesterday thanks to continued buying on improved investor sentiments. The ASPI increased by 2.04% or 94.18 points to close at 4,701.03 points, while the S&P SL20 Index also increased by 2.11% or 38.94 points to close at 1,886.65.
The global economy could suffer between $5.8 trillion and $8.8 trillion in losses — equivalent to 6.4% to 9.7% of global gross domestic product (GDP) — as a result of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, says a new report released by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) last week.
But Financial, Health and Professional Services, Wholesale and Retail Trade, and Transportation sub-sectors hopeful of recovery after virus mitigation measures ease
Business leader Dhammika Perera’s prediction on the number of global COVID-19 last week during the Daily FT-SC Securities webinar has come true.
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