The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a $100 million loan to provide small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Sri Lanka more access to finance and build their resilience to external shocks, such as the economic crisis and climate change.

ECONOMYNEXT –State-run Ceylon Electricity Board is losing qualified engineers at an alarming rate, after a currency collapse and new progressive taxes slapped on the debased salary, and they are not coming back, union officials said. Ceylon Electricity Board has a cadre of around 1,000 engineers but they have been usually managing with lower levels of […]

Standard Chartered Bank’s Global Research team conducted its 2024 H1 Global Research Briefing (GRB) in Sri Lanka recently, themed ‘A soft landing, with risks’. The event took place on 4 March at the Galle Face Hotel Colombo and was attended by corporate, commercial and institutional banking clients of the Bank. It provided a valuable platform […]

Saturday 16th March, 2024 Sri Lankan governments do not respond to early warnings and thereby invite trouble. The Easter Sunday carnage (2019) could have been prevented if the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government had heeded repeated intelligence warnings of impending terror attacks. It let the grass grow under its feet, and disaster struck. It has now been revealed […]

By Shamindra Ferdinando SLPP National List MP Gevindu Cumaratunga and member of Uththara Lanka Sabhagaya has moved the Supreme Court seeking equal treatment to all members of the Employees Provident Fund (EPF). Cumaratunga, who is also the President of Yuthukama National OrganiSation has acted in terms of Article 126 read with Article 17 of the […]

Friday 15th March, 2024 The JVP turned down President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s invitation to a meeting with the IMF, but some of its senior members met a visiting IMF delegation yesterday in Colombo perhaps as part of its strategy to gain political mileage. Whoever would have thought, a decade or so ago, that the JVP leaders […]

By Hiran H.Senewiratne While the stock market kicked off on a positive note yesterday, it subsequently slowed down but towards the latter part of the day it bounced back due to noticeable share movements on Lanka IOC and banking sector stocks, market analysts said. During the day, LOLC Group shares were under tremendous selling pressure, […]

By Sanath Nanayakkare Saliya Wickramasuriya-Member of Colombo Port City Economic Commission said in Colombo on Wednesday that the new Port City Commission to be appointed at the end of the tenure of the current one would only have a few boxes to tick, in getting its work completed as a fully-fledged functional body going forward. […]

The late Ray Forbes encompassed within himself administrative excellence and profound humanity. On account of these rare qualities he endeared himself to the staff and students of the Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies (BCIS), Colombo, for well over a decade. The above sentiments were expressed with regard to the former Director of the BCIS, Ray […]

HNB General Insurance, a leading provider of insurance solutions in Sri Lanka, announced a collaborative partnership with Sampath Bank to offer customers 12-month 0% interest payment plans on both motor and non-motor insurance policies. This marks HNB General Insurance’s collaboration with a non-group member bank, significantly expanding its reach and making insurance more accessible for […]

TNA Parliamentarian M. A. Sumanthiran was the only opposition member to accept President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s invitation to a party leaders meeting at the Presidential Secretariat to deliberate the IMF proposals. During the discussions, Secretary to the Treasury Mahinda Siriwardena provided insights into the ongoing negotiations with bilateral creditors, commercial creditors, and ISBs, wit...

The Cabinet of Ministers approved the proposal presented by the President in his capacity as the Minister of Child and Women Affairs and Social Empowerment to launch a pilot program using Asian Development Bank (ADB) and World Bank (WB) financing and local funds targeting 16,000 beneficiary families in selected divisional secretariats covering all twenty-five districts […]

The National Bureau of Statistics of the Communist Party of China recently released a series of economic data however there is still no data on the youth unemployment rate which is said to be intentional due to the current situation. Currently unemployment among Chinese youth is widespread to maintain stability and avoid risks from domestic […]

Peter Breuer, Chief of IMF Mission to Sri Lanka has claimed that the Sri Lankan economy is showing signs of progress. The monetary and fiscal measures like tax increases and particularly the debt moratorium may have resulted in giving some breathing space for the country to recover from the period of extreme hardship caused by […]

…  asks House to rectify fundamental blunder by Shamindra Ferdinando Lawmaker Gevindu Cumaratunga, on behalf of the Uththara Lanka Sabhagaya (ULS), has requested the Chairman of the Committee on Public Finance (CoPF) Dr. Harsha De Silva to propose fundamental change to the Central Bank of Sri Lanka Act (No 16 of 2023) by including Secretary to the Finance Ministry/Treasury […]

Sixty-nine Sri Lankan fishing boats are in Indian custody, Minister of Fisheries Douglas Devananda has said during a recent televised interview.Hundreds of Indian boats arrive in Sri Lankan waters and use destructive bottom trawling techniques in the territorial waters of Sri Lanka, the Minister said. “They have destroyed all marine resources in the Indian territorial […]

UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk on Friday deplored Israel s latest actions regarding the occupied West Bank, saying the drastic acceleration in settlement building is exacerbating long-standing patterns of oppression, violence and discrimination against Palestinians.