At the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) Annual Conference in Kuala Lumpur last week, PATA CEO Martin J. Craigs committed the association to a four-year phase of ‘Next Generation’ action to underpin the 61-year old travel body’s relevance in the digital age. The CEO said aligned advocacy, mobile technology, business building events, and crisis management ...

Reuters: The Central Bank said on Friday that despite heavy depreciation pressure on the rupee, there was no need to intervene in the market as the country would see $ 574 million of inflows within a month. On Friday, the currency was trading near its record low of 131.60 per dollar, hit on 19 March ...

Singapore Tourism Board (STB) said it expects at least a ten per cent spike in number of Gulf visitors to the country this summer lured by its family-friendly attractions, refined shopping experience and a sleepless nightlife. Singapore has already received more than 14,000 visitors from the UAE during the first quarter of 2012, up 8 ...

The Central Bank, in its latest Annual Report, has downgraded its growth forecast for 2012 from eight per cent to 7.2 per cent. This is due to a combination of adverse global developments and the negative effects of domestic policy misalignments. The contractionary measures introduced to address the imbalance in the trade account (i.e. to ...

Cinnamon Lakeside Colombo yesterday announced the arrival of a new Front Office Manager, Ronald David. David brings a considerable amount of management experience to the Cinnamon Lakeside Colombo team, having spent the majority of his career managing and leading teams both in Sri Lanka and the UK.   Beginning his career as a Tele-marketing Executive ...

Avurudu or New Year and Easter remind us of the East and our oriental culture. The Sinhala and Tamil New Year day is the day the sun transits from Pisces to Aries to begin a new year cycle. The dawn of the New Year occurs at the point that transit takes place. The New Year ...

Last Sunday when the unknown Ajinkya Rahane scored 103 runs off just 60 balls at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore, which helped the Rajasthan Royals to score a massive 195 runs at IPL season five, my mind went to just one ethos the IPL is all about – highlighting performance. It is how IPL ...

The Employers Federation of Ceylon (EFC) has launched its second edition of Guide to Investors on Industrial Relations Practices and Labour Laws in Sri Lanka. EFC said that with the Government actively encouraging foreign direct investment in various sectors such as knowledge services, leisure and tourism, apparels and manufacturing, the launch of its guide was ...

A gallery of images depicting the story of how the Nature Trails team headed by Chitral Jayathilake and Head Naturalist Nilantha Kodithuwakku, launched whale watching in the Eastern coast; was displayed at Chaaya Blu Trincomalee recently. Once approval was obtained by relevant authorities, the Nature Trails team headed out from Chaaya Blu Trincomalee in their ...

Sri Lanka, which is known as the ‘Pearl of the Indian Ocean’, has drawn worldwide attention due to its geographical location in the Indian Ocean, says Times of Oman. The newspaper reported that Sri Lanka had been a popular international trade centre for many centuries and traders from numerous countries travelled to Sri Lanka for ...

Hundreds of millions of people, businesses and governments around the world unite each year to support the largest environmental event in history – Earth Hour.  For 42 years Earth Hour has been uniting people to protect the planet but it seems that Mother Earth has never been faced with a crisis as severe as it ...

Whilst expressing confidence over the outlook for 2012 the Central Bank in its 2011 Annual Report says that the key challenge facing Sri Lanka in 2012 is managing the numerous risks arising from global developments. It said given the uncertain outlook for global commodity prices, especially oil, the challenge ahead would be to maintain inflation ...

In the recent past we have seen many success stories reported from the Eastern province, be it the new hotels that have been built, the staging of the world surfing championships in Arugam Bay, new infrastructure that is bringing about strong economic growth. The GDP growth of almost 20 per cent registered in 2011 is ...

Deals worth $ 12.1 m under negotiation “An invaluable learning curve for Sri Lanka’s international trade scheme,” says Rishad The recently-concluded Expo 2012 was a successful event, coming after a lapse of 15 years. “Expo 2012 garnered confirmed orders to the value of US$ 66,090 and currently orders under negotiation amount to US$ 12,110,315. There ...

The challenges Sri Lanka has to face in its march towards development are manifold. Although the war has ended the wrong political ideologies, the proposals and timetables it created are still in operation. By Government Information Department Additional Director General Chandrapala Liyanage Similarly, various social activity groups and individuals and organisations operating under the advice ...

Parliamentary accountability The Parliament, as the country’s foremost representative institution, has the sole authority over national resources and financial allocations and concurrently has a prominent role to play in fiscal responsibility, the budgetary process, economic development and effective transparent economic and financial management, with a view to assuring sustainable growth an...

Tilan Wijeyesekera was inducted as the new President of the Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing(SLIM) for the year 2012/13 at the AGM concluded last week. The event took place at the Cinnamon Lakeside hotel amidst a gathering of some of the nation’s best marketing professionals. Wijeyesekera at the age of 34 becomes the youngest President ...

Peercore IT.‘s state of the art visitor management system was used for Sri Lanka Expo 2012, the spectacular showcase of Sri Lanka’s export quality products, services, trade investments and tourism , attracting industry experts, public and private sector representatives, trade and business associations, and international buyers from every corner of the world, which  concluded last ...

Let’s accept it, Sri Lanka made a statement to the world that we are open for business with Expo 2012, even though it had its limitations like the faulty air conditioner at the launch that grabbed media attention. Whilst some can say that the shine was taken off the event due to the very uncomfortable ...

The Secretary of Defence and Urban Development Gotabaya Rajapaksa was invited as a Guest of the Government of Japan in order to interact with the key political leaders, senior technocrats and cabinet ministers. Secretary Rajapaksa, on the day before he left to Colombo, met Minister of Education, Culture, Sports , Science and Technology Hirofumi Hirano; ...

Expo 2012, organised by the Export Development Board, provided an ideal opportunity to Sri Lanka Tourism industry to promote its product to the international market. At the end of the event, Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB) had been able to achieve its targets successfully. The stall of the SLTPB was one of the eye ...

A large group of Indian businessmen are visiting Sri Lanka Expo 2012. According to Export Development Board officials, Indian participation is one of the largest in Expo 2012, with participation of over 200 business visitors. The participation of Indian business delegation in Expo 2012 is being supported by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Southern ...

By Cheranka Mendis While Sri Lanka’s largest mega trade, investment and tourism promotion initiative ‘Expo 2012’ has been welcomed by stakeholders as a timely affair, stallholders shared mixed feelings on the order of the show. Some were elated having received inquires just two days into the event, while others expressed disappointment with regard to the ...

A new Air Services Agreement between Sri Lanka and the Russian Federation was signed at the Ministry of Transport of Russia in Moscow on 26 March. Sri Lankan Ambassador in the Russian Federation Udayanga Weeratunga signed the Agreement on behalf of the Government of Sri Lanka while Deputy Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation ...

By Cassandra Mascarenhas Sri Lanka is ripe for investment and should exploit its strategic location to attract more foreign investment, while not losing focus on its traditional markets were the general views expressed at the Expo 2012 Symposium on Trade, Investment and Tourism. Held yesterday, the symposium featured a line-up of representatives of many sectors, ...

Sri Lanka’s first-ever food certification firm took off on 28 March with the signing of MoU between Ind-Expo Certification Ltd. and Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA).The $ 1.33 m initiative was inaugurated by Minister of Industry and Commerce Rishad Bathiudeen at Taj Samudra Hotel Colombo on Wednesday.   Sri Lanka Tourism Chairman Dr. Nalaka ...

Addition from the success of Expo 2012, Sri Lanka Tourism witnessed the one to one meetings between the Sri Lankan and Foreign Tour operators achieving the expected goals. These meetings provided an excellent opportunity for local travel agents to cooperate with their international counterparts and thereby to develop and promote the products.

Sri Lanka and Japan have agreed to add Tokyo’s Narita International Airport to the Open Skies Agreement between the two countries, Japan Times reported. According to Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism the addition of Narita airport is to take effect in summer of 2013. The agreement will allow both countries to operate ...

HSBC has partnered the Export Development Board (EDB) to be the Principal Sponsor – Banking Sector of the Sri Lanka Expo 2012, which began yesterday at the BMICH. It is on until Saturday from 10.a.m. to 8.p.m. The premier international trade fair aptly themed ‘Partnering with the Hub of Asia’ is expected to attract over ...

IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, has hosted a trade finance training program for Sri Lankan bankers, part of an effort to help local entrepreneurs tap into the global marketplace. The training, held in March, explored the potential of trade finance, which helps businesses connect with international customers and suppliers, spurring trade and ...