Economic

The Colombo stock market suffered a negative start on the first day of trading in the New Year though most global and Asian markets began positively.

Colombo International Container Terminals (CICT) yesterday announced it handled a total of 2.9 million TEUs in 2019, achieving an 8.6% increase in its throughput and accounting for 40% of the volume of the Port of Colombo in the 12 months ending 31 December 2019.

Latest effort to revive the company likely to be launched this week
Company had appealed to CB for fresh round, arguing investment climate has improved now
Limited time to be given; cancelled licence not detrimental for investor search
Posts Rs. 1 b loss in 1Q; retained losses nears Rs. 28 b

The Finance Company (TFC) has called Expressions of Interest (EOI) from prospective strategic investors for Equity Investment in the firm.

Sampath Bank yesterday clarified that it is fully compliant with the regulatory requirements of the Central Bank.

A 10-year strategic plan and roadmap is in the making under a public-private sector collaboration to boost tea industry.

සුළු හා මධ්‍ය පරිමාණ (SME) ව්‍යාපාරවල අක්‍රීය ණය ගෙවීම වසරක කාලයකට අත්හිටුවීමට සඳහා වූ යෝජනාව පොලී ඉවත් කිරීම දක්වාත් තවත් පියවරකින් ඉදිරියට ගැනීමට රජය සලකා බලමින් සිටින අතර, මේ සඳහා හේතුවී ඇත්තේ සුළු හා මධ්‍ය පරිමාණ ව්‍යවසායක ණයකරුවන්ගේ අපහසුතාවන් ‍පිළිබඳ රජයේ දැඩි අවධානය යොමු කිරීමයි.

Sri Lanka is now harnessing benefits of trade facilitation through multilateral, regional and bilateral trade agreements and comprehensive economic partnerships, Department of Commerce statistics showed.

Sri Lanka’s Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) equity inflow is being resumed with the launching of the first US$ 250 million mixed development project the first such initiative under the new government soon.

Two Indian private banks Axis Bank and ICICI Bank will be closing down their operations in Sri Lanka with the pemission of the Central Bank, reliable banking sources disclosed.

Sri Lanka’s fuel pricing formula introduced in mid last year at the insistence of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is set to be abolished or reviewed despite its input in increasing the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) revenue.

The Central Bank is optimistic that the economy will grow between four and four and half percent in 2020 given the political and economic stabilisation measures introduced by the new government aimed at accelerating economic growth in the coming year and beyond.

The trade deficit contracted in October on the back of lower expenditure on imports and a marginal drop in export earnings. According to the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, a decline in cumulative expenditure on imports and an increase in export inflows resulted in the deficit contracting to US$ 6.5 billion in the first 10 months of 2019 – compared to 8.9 billion dollars during the corresponding period in the previous year.

Sri Lanka will have to follow an alternate economic policy without being caught up in between the neo-liberalism intervention and Washington consensus of stabilise, privatise and liberalise, new Central Bank (CB) Governor Prof. W.D. Lakshman emphasised at a media conference in Colombo on Friday.

Prices of essential commodities and consumer items including rice, gas and fuel are still on the increase despite the reduction of VAT, a senior officer of the Consumer Affairs Authority said.

PickMe සමාගමේ තාක්ෂණික අංශය වන PickMe Engineering පසුගිය දා Google Developers Group (GDG) සහ GDG Cloud Sri Lanka විසින් සංවිධාන කරන ලද GDG DEVFest Sri Lanka 2019 වැඩසටහනට ප්ලැටිනම් අනුග්‍රාහකත්වය ලබාදීමට කටයුතු කළේය. මේ වැඩසටහන පසු ගිය මස 23 සහ 24 දිනවල SLIIT සහ Stein Studio හිදී පැවැත්විණි.

2020 දී ශ්‍රී ලංකාව සියයට 4.0 සිට 4.5 දක්වා ආර්ථික වර්ධනයක් අපේක්ෂා කරන අතර, උද්ධමනය සියයට 4.0 ට වඩා අඩු වන අතර වඩා හොඳ ප්‍රතිපත්ති සහිත මධ්‍ය කාලීනව සියයට 6.5 ක ඉහළ වර්ධනයක් අපේක්ෂා කරන බව ද මහ බැංකු අධිපති ඩබ්ලිව්. ඩී. ලක්ෂ්මන් මහතා පැවසීය.

නව රජය විසින් සුළු හා මධ්‍ය පරිමාණ ව්‍යවසායන් (SME) සඳහා ලබා දී තිබූ ණය සහනය මූල්‍ය ආයතනවලට ද ලබා දී තිබේ.