A number of articles which appeared in print media in the recent past signify the volatility in the economy. High volatility leads to vulnerability. Volatility and vulnerability are reflections of the haphazard nature of the economic policies and poor economic governance in a country. What is volatility? Volatility is the severity and the frequency with ...

The Sri Lankan Government is making serious efforts in rehabilitation of former Tamil Tiger combatants, their reintegration into society and reconciliation with the minority, a high ranking Russian Government official said. Konstantin Dolgov, Russian Foreign Ministry Commissioner for Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law, and Ambassador-at-Large, said the situation in terms of human ...

The first Prime Minister of independent India, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, wrote 75 years ago: “It would be absurd to say that the profit motive does not appeal to the average Indian, but it is nevertheless true that there is no such admiration for it in India as there is in the west. The possessor of ...

By Shanuka Tissera SREI Infrastructure Finance Ltd (India) announced their launch in Sri Lanka through a partnership with Arinma Holdings Pvt Ltd. SREI has helped over 30,000 entrepreneurs over its 23 years in operation offering a range of services in the infrastructure sector: Infrastructure project finance, advisory and development infrastructure equipment finance, venture capital and ...

By Cassandra Mascarenhas Sri Lanka’s biggest ICT events of 2012, the ASOCIO international conference and the country’s national IT expo INFOTEL, will be held consecutively portraying the country’s persistent ICT development and the significance of the rapidly expanding industry.   Hosted by the Federation of Information Technology Industry (FITIS), the Asian-Oceanian Computi...

Playing off India against China and vice versa‘The Great Game’ was the name given to a diplomatic and military tussle between the British and Russian empires during the time of the British Raj in India for influence over what constitutes today’s central Asian states. Commonly known as the ‘Stan states,’ they were located along the ...

Sri Lanka’s dependence on imported milk is a phenomenon that evolved during the time frame of my lifetime. I well remember as a child, a man used to bring a cow and its small calf to our house – we lived in a Government quarters bungalow in Colombo – and milk the cow, in the ...

Industry experts urge disillusioned local investors to ‘buy when it’s down and sell when it’s up’ In a highly volatile atmosphere and with low investor confidence in the Colombo Bourse, experts earlier this week went against the negative sentiments and instead stated that now is the time to buy. These views were aired at a ...

UNCTAD released its World Investment Report 2012 recently. The report indicated that for the first time since 2007, global FDI inflows increased by 16% despite the continuing effects of the global and financial economic crisis. However, UNCTAD predicts the FDI growth rates to decline in 2012 due to economic uncertainty and the possibility of lower ...

By Cassandra Mascarenhas Setting its sights on placing Sri Lanka in the global economy and expanding its reach in overseas markets, the Sri Lanka Economic Summit 2012, the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce’s annual flagship event, aptly themed ‘Positioning Sri Lanka in the Global Economy,’ commenced last evening at the Cinnamon Grand. In the context of ...

After 11 years of making US higher education popular across the tiny island nation in Indian Ocean Scholarships for USA (Pvt) Ltd (www.scholarshipsforusa.com) has commenced promoting Sri Lanka as one of the most viable Study Abroad destinations for its numerous partners in US. SUSA believes the traffic needs to be both ways and there’s much ...

Sri Lanka’s new development tagline Sri Lanka’s current development tagline has been to make it the ‘Emerging Wonder of Asia’ as originally enunciated in the ‘Mahinda Chinthana: Vision for the Future’ and reaffirmed in both the Development Policy Framework of the Government issued in 2010 and the Annual Report of the Ministry of Finance and ...

By Cheranka Mendis  Held for the 22nd consecutive year, Sri Lanka’s international gem and jewellery exhibition ‘Facets 2012’ is geared to make bigger waves in the market with 154 stalls being sold out already. Scheduled to be held from 5 to 8 September at the Sirimavo Bandaranaike Memorial Exhibition Centre at BMICH, the exhibition has ...

A document named ‘Growing Together’ prepared by UNESCAP for the sixty sixth session of ESCAP states that the realisation of what is termed as the ‘Asia Pacific century’ will depend on the region’s ability to harness the potential of regional economic integration. A shared history and culture, complementarities arising from their very different levels of ...

Wide publicity has been given to the events unfolding at the Sri Lanka Tourism regarding the resignation of the Chairman from Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau, Sri Lanka Institute of Tourism and Hotel Management and Sri Lanka Convention Bureau and the performance of the Board of Investment. The media reports have given the impression that ...

Ballooning trade gap Even with the multitude of measures taken to curb imports, Sri Lanka's cumulative trade deficit widened to nearly US$ 1.7 billion in the first two months of the year with earnings from exports increasing marginally by 3.3 per cent to US$ 1.8 billion whilst import expenditure shooting by 24.7 per cent to ...

After the LTTE was defeated, a campaign designed to promote Sri Lanka as a leisure and investment destination labelled ‘The Small Miracle’ was shot down, ostensibly on the ground that the miracle was in no way ‘small’. The marketing value in Sri Lanka’s compact size, our rich biodiversity, the diversity of leisure locations and physical ...

News reports point to an important decision that the minister concerned has been requested to make on the above subject. If this is correct it is important that we recognise that it is more than a million dollar decision that has been called for. It is so important a decision because it could determine the ...

By Saman Kelegama New deal from Busan? The 4th High Level Forum (HLF) on Aid Effectiveness in Busan which took place during 29 November to 1 December 2011 came out with a New Deal for Engagement of Fragile States – a somewhat novel document of aid architecture that provides fragile states a stronger role in ...