By Prabhat Patnaik After Sri Lanka and Pakistan, Bangladesh has become the third country in our neighbourhood to become afflicted by a serious economic crisis. It has asked for a $4.5 billion loan from the IMF, apart from $1 billion from the World Bank and $2.5-3 billion from multilateral agencies and donor nations. Though the […]

By Y P Prakash The growth of regional industries is crucial for India to realize its ambitions of becoming a global manufacturing hub, and India’s potential in this regard is undeniable. The International Monetary Fund predicts that India’s GDP will grow by 6.1% in 2023, surpassing China’s projected growth of 4.4%. Furthermore, India is expected […]

A big Polish chicken producer has been knocking on China’s door for eight years without selling a single drumstick, but hope springs eternal according to one of its representatives. Wipasz deputy sales director Rafat Koztowski attended the China-CEEC Expo & International Consumer Goods Fair in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, last month on his second visit to China since […]

By Chani Imbulgoda “We suffer today, because leaders in the past have failed to govern this country properly”. Oh, the predecessor has not done things well, they all have let the place go haywire”. Familiar excuses… When one takes over the leadership be it the country, be it an organisation, or be it a new […]

Sri Lanka is among three South Asian governments that increased borrowing from domestic banks to finance their record debt, and, as a result, sovereign-bank nexus increased, heightening the financial sector’s vulnerability, according to a World Bank report. The other two countries are the Maldives and Pakistan, says a WB report, titled ‘A mixed bag for […]

CPC, CEB need to recover costs until end of Fund’s loan package By Rathindra Kuruwita The Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) and Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) had to recover costs until the end of the IMF programme, Sarwat Jahan, IMF Resident Representative in Sri Lanka, told a press conference in Colombo yesterday. The IMF also wanted the […]

IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva did not mince her words about emerging and heightening crisis tendencies in the global economy. She said, among other things recently, that the IMF’s projection of 2.8 percent global growth for 2023 “is not enough to bring opportunities to businesses and people around the world, and most worrisome is the projection […]

While the days of good news are going on for India, the latest good news is that our country’s currency, the rupee, is gradually making its place and influence among countries of the world. Seeing the increasing role of India in international trade, the countries of the world are coming forward to do financial transactions […]

India had helped Sri Lanka more than any other country, especially, Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Ali Sabry said during Raisina Dialogue ‘Ideas Pod.’ While the Indian government took some bold decisions to help Sri Lanka face its economic crisis, even the Indian public came forward to support Sri Lanka, the country’s foreign minister said in […]

It is welcome news for progressive opinion in the global South that some seven countries, thus far seen as having been among the poorest countries of the world, would be ‘graduating’ out of the Least Developing Country (LDC) category. Among them are; Bhutan, Bangladesh, Laos, Nepal and Angola. Hopefully, development researchers the world over would […]

CIA Chief’s cloak-and-dagger visit: By Shamindra Ferdinando Pivuthuru Hela Urumaya (PHU) leader, Udaya Gammanpila, MP, yesterday (06) said that the Wickremesinghe-Rajapaksa government and the US embassy in Colombo should come clean on CIA Director William Joseph Burns’ Colombo visit. The former Power and Energy Minister said so in response to The Island query whether the […]

Monday, 6th March, 2023 The Rajapaksa-Wickremesinghe regime has been painting itself into a corner on the political front by going all out to scuttle the local government (LG) polls. It succeeded in delaying the elections by manipulating the Treasury to deprive the Election Commission (EC) of funds, but Friday’s Supreme Court (SC) interim order has […]

Canadian Government’s obligations to Sri Lanka consequent to Ontario’s Bill 104, viewed within concepts of “Diplomatic Protection”, “regionalism versus international law” as well as the “Vienna convention 1961” By Chandre Dharma-wardana The provincial government of Ontario passed a bill (Bill 104) implying that a genocide of Tamils occurred in Sri Lanka, and int...

The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the G20 is destabilized by the collective West and is used in an anti-Russian, purely confrontational manner. The United States, the EU and the G7 continue their attempts to isolate Russia and shift the blame for the provoked problems in international security and the global economy […]

BBC reported that finance ministers of the world’s largest economies have failed to agree on a closing statement following a summit in India, after China refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Beijing declined to accept parts of a G20 statement that deplored Russia’s aggression “in the strongest terms”. Moscow said “anti-Russian” Western countrie...

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 […]