Pakistan’s government has agreed to increase the policy interest rate which stands at 17 per cent by two per cent or 200 basis points to meet another condition set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), The Express Tribune reported. With the new decision, Pakistan has accepted another pre-condition of the IMF for the release of […]

It would be a tired truism to say that our country is passing through one of the most trying periods since Independence, 75 years ago. All of us have (or should have) formulas to pull us out of this seemingly interminable rut. Waste, corruption, profligacy, poor planning, inefficiency, idiotic prioritization and many more stick out […]

President Ranil Wickremesinghe has stated that the country s economy cannot afford the release of funds on an ad hoc basis, owing to its ongoing economic crisis.

Beijing [China], February 20 (ANI): Chinese people continued to face difficulty as the economy of the country is falling, ramping up the risk of social unrest in the nation, Global Strat View reported citing the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) economic outlook. China’s economy is slow and it no longer satisfies the aspirations of upward mobility. […]

Islamabad , February 20 (ANI): The experience of Chinese companies working on the ground in Pakistan has been far from pleasant. Most of the early China – Pakistan Economic Corridor investments were in the power sector. The investments, however, created sizeable liabilities on the future cash flows of these projects, Indo Pacific Centre for Strategic […]

China Daily: Sri Lanka is set to receive its first group of post-pandemic Chinese tourists after becoming one of the first 20 countries to resume the organization of outbound group tourists from China since COVID-19. Their flight will depart from the Shanghai Pudong International Airport on March 3. “We are expecting Chinese tourists to come […]

Aljazeera reports that there is a severe shortage of greenbacks in Bangladesh due to its dwindling foreign reserves and a sharp drop in the value of its taka currency against the dollar. In the past six months, Bangladesh’s foreign reserves have dropped below $32bn from $39bn while the value of the taka has fallen by […]

By Saman Indrajith SBJB MP Harsha de Silva said that he had asked the Gotabaya Rajapaksa administration to seek IMF assistance in 2020. “At that time a U.S dollar was selling at Rs 200. The interest rates were around six percent. Inflation was around six percent. The situation is completely different today. Our interest rates […]

Amidst the ongoing economic crisis, the government has instructed public officials to purchase Economy Class airline tickets for official travels to foreign countries.

By Noah Berman A wave of darkness engulfed Pakistan on January 24 as its aging power grid strained to meet the country’s demand for electricity. The massive outage was the latest in a series of blackouts that have become a chronic symptom of Pakistan’s ailing and climate-vulnerable economy, under duress from devastating natural disasters, a colossal […]

Washington [US], February 18 (ANI): A report released by Washington-based Uyghur Human Rights Project has accused UNESCO of violating its own standards by failing to acknowledge Beijing’s actions towards Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in China, US-based Voice of America (VOA) reported. These actions by Beijing include “destroying built heritage and desacralizing religious traditions, criminal...

By Sanath Nanayakkare The prospects for lightening the debt burden of low-income countries such as Sri Lanka will become clearer at the G20 meeting to be held in Bengaluru, President Ranil Wickremesinghe said in Colombo on Tuesday. He said so referring to the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting under the G20 Indian […]

By Saman Indrajith The JVP told Parliament yesterday that the IMF would not consider extending its assistance to Sri Lanka as long as the incumbent government remained in power, without holding elections. JVP MP Vijitha Herath, participating in the second reading debate on the Regulations under the Colombo Port City Economic Commission Act, said that […]

Sri Lanka has secured Japanese assistance to run government hospitals. The Japanese Ambassador Mizukoshi Hideaki yesterday (22) signed an Exchange of Notes, with the Secretary to the Treasury, Mahinda Siriwardana, at the Presidential Secretariat. for a humanitarian grant assistance of USD 46 million in providing diesel fuel for public hospitals, across the country, Earlier, China provided […...

Facing a dire national financial crisis and an urgent need to generate foreign currency income, state-owned SriLankan Airlines (SL) is restructuring and expanding its network to markets that were strong in the pre-Covid period, including Australia, and China.