Economic

The Central Bank yesterday said it has removed the deposit rate cap imposed on banks as the lending rate caps have been announced.

Sri Lanka’s foreign-funded infrastructure projects, under implantation are either delayed or suspended midway due to lack of proper coordination between various public institutions that implement such projects, a progress review report revealed.

කිරිපිටි සමාගම් කිරිපිටි මිල ගණන් ඉහළ නංවා ඇත්තේ ලෝක වෙළෙඳපොළේ කිරි පිටි මිල එතරම් ඉහළ ගොස් නොතිබියදී බව හතරවන හරස්වීදියේ තොග ව්‍යාපාරිකයෝ පවසති.

Central Bank of Sri Lanka has taken a number of monetary and regulatory policy measures to induce a reduction in market lending rates over the past eleven months.

Sri Lanka’s Gross Domestic Product GDP grew by 1.6 per cent in real terms in the second quarter 2019 (Q2) , mainly attributable to 1.6 per cent growth in Services activities, 1.4 per cent growth in Industry activities and 1.0 per cent growth in Agriculture activities in value added terms, Central Bank announced.

Sinhaputhra Finance Plc, non-bank lender in Sri Lanka has been given time to raise capital, the central bank said.

ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ සත්ත්ව සෞඛ්‍ය නිෂ්පාදන කර්මාන්තයේ වෙළෙඳ පොළ ප්‍රමුඛයා වන සීමාසහිත ෆාර්ම්කෙමි (පෞද්ගලික) සමාගම ලංකා ජාතික කර්මාන්ත මණ්ඩලය සංවිධාන කළ CNCI Achievers - 2019 සම්මාන උළෙලේ දී නිෂ්පාදන අංශයේ ජාතික මට්ටමේ මහා පරිමාණ කාණ්ඩයේ කුසලතා සම්මානයෙන් පිදුම් ලැබීය. ගත වූ පහළොස් වසර තුළ දේශීය වෙළෙඳ පොළේ අණසක පතුරුවා සිටින ෆාර්ම්කෙමි සමාගම සිය ජනප්‍රිය සන්නාමය වන ෆාර්ම්ස්ටාර් නිෂ්පාදන, පශු වෛද්‍ය පෙර මුසු සහ සත්ත්ව ආහාර අතිරේක සමගින් ජාත්‍යන්තර වෙළෙඳ පොළට ද ප්‍රවිශ්ට විය. ඉන්දියාව, උගන්ඩාව, බංග්ලාදේශය, පාකිස්තානය, නේපාලය සහ එක්සත් අරාබි එමීර් රාජ්‍යය තුළ 2018 සිට ෆාර්ම්කෙමි නිෂ්පාදන අලෙවි කෙරේ.

India’s iconic and world-famous hospitality brand Taj yesterday expressed growing optimism on Sri Lanka committing over $ 40 million investment in the medium term to upgrade existing hotels as well as expand its footprint locally.

Sri Lanka has to explore new avenues to increase its exports focusing attention on diversification of exportable products.

Details of a vehicle racket involving “Specialized vehicle” imports taking advantage of lower tax regime of engine capacity taxation formula have been revealed

International Trade and Development Strategies Minister Malik Samarawickrama last week revealed that the Board of Investment (BoI) has approved foreign direct investment (FDI) projects amounting over $20 billion for this year.

The Finance Ministry has made arrangments to reach the people and conduct Enterprise Sri Lanka mobile service throughout the country in order to provide capital loans at subsidised interest rate to enable the people to begin small and medium, self employment or industries in several districts during the next few days.

Sri Lanka's inflation, as measured by the change in the National Consumer Price Index(NCPI) increased to 3.4 percent in August 2019 from 2.2 percent in July 2019, Central Bank announced on Tuesday.

The Sathya Gaweshakayo (Truth Seekers) organisation, which is affiliated with the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), yesterday said the Government had been attempting to bring legislation to allow foreign nationals to own lands in Sri Lanka and requested the public to remain vigilant of such activities.

The Monetary Board of the Central Bank has decided cancel the licence issued to TKS Finance Ltd under the under the Finance Business Act, No. 42 of 2011 (FBA) carry on finance business with effect 19th September 2019.

Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) is now entering in to long term financial agreements to implement artificially built-up or massive scale projects with investments running up to billions of rupees in a hurry on the eve of upcoming presidential elections, SLT engineers alleged.

The Colombo stock market turned negative yesterday despite return of foreign buying.

Sri Lanka’s manufacturing activities continued to expand at a higher rate in August 2019, compared to July 2019.