Economic

Central Bank (CB) said yesterday it raised $ 62 million afresh via Sri Lanka Development Bonds (SLDBs) on top of $ 24.8 million last week.

වාහන ආනයනය කිරීමේ තහනම තවත් වසරක කාලයක් ක්‍රියාත්මක කිරීමට මුදල් අමාත්‍යාංශය තීරණය කර ඇත.

The Colombo Stock Market showed resilience yesterday with both indices finishing on the up after a rocky day, with profit taking and turnover crossing the now standard Rs. 3 billion mark.

Lanka IOC Ltd. is nearing the completion of work on Sri Lanka’s first grease manufacturing plant in Trincomalee, a move which will help save valuable foreign exchange as at present the requirement is met entirely via imports.

In an attempt to return Colombo Port operations to normal, the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) is in the midst of setting up an improved contingency plan and has offered all perks to draw retired crane operators to offset a spree of staff shortages caused by COVID-19.

Dialog Axiata PLC yesterday said it has managed to consolidate their year-to-date (YTD) performance with a stable third quarter whilst investing further to grow its business.

Customs has announced new measures to improve facilitation benefitting its users with quicker clearance of shipments and reduced cost.

Reuters: Shares posted losses for a second straight session on Friday, weighed by industrials and communication services stocks.

Seamless running of the Colombo Port could be running into a squall, the shipping industry warned yesterday, as operations slowed due to the impact of dozens of State-run Jaya Container Terminal (JCT) employees testing COVID-19 positive, at least 200 others ordered to self-quarantine, and about 35 ships prevented from unloading cargo.

The emergence of the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic in October has impacted the performance of exports, which saw strong momentum since June.

Money Capital Markets and State Enterprise Reforms Ajith Nivard Cabraal told Parliament yesterday.

Sri Lankan privately-owned carrier FitsAir has started a dedicated freighter service to cater to post-COVID air cargo demand.To serve this purpose, FitsAir recently added a P2C A321 and converted it into a freighter and has concluded cargo flights to the Maldives and Dubai. The P2C A321 converted freighter aircraft can carry 20 tons within a five-hour range.

The Government's latest issue of Sri Lanka Development Bonds (SLDBs) worth $ 75 million concluded undersubscribed by over 60% last week.

Despite the drastic economic downturn, Sampath Bank said it has recorded a profit before tax (PBT) of Rs. 6.99 billion and a profit after tax (PAT) of Rs. 5.09 billion for the nine months ended 30 September 2020, reflecting a decline of 33.1% and 22% respectively from a year earlier.

The Government yesterday via an Extraordinary Gazette set a maximum retail price (MRP) on a kilogram of white sugar.

Recommends BOI enterprises provide dedicated boarding houses for employees given likelihood of longer term prevalence of COVID-19

Gains from government securities, foreign exchange (FX) swap trading and FX trading activities have enabled the Commercial Bank of Ceylon Group (ComBank) to mitigate to some extent, the severity of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on profits in a period of reduced interest income and substantially higher impairment provisioning, compared to the corresponding quarter of the last year.

Dialog Axiata, Sri Lanka’s premier connectivity provider, announced the launch of 5G roaming that would enable Dialog subscribers to roam on 5G networks while overseas.