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 […]

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 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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

By Neville Ladduwahetty During President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s India visit in July 2023, five Memorandums of Understanding (MOU) were signed by India and Sri Lanka to establish physical connections between the two countries. This was followed more recently by the launch of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) – a mechanism that claims to reduce the cost […]

The Cabinet of  Ministers approved the proposal made by the Minister of Irrigation to provide 0.99 hectares each on the water surface of the Chandrika wewa Reservoir located in the Embilipitiya Divisional Secretariat Area and the water surface of the Kiriibban wewa Reservoir located in Sewanagala Divisional Secretariat Area and plots of 0.1 hectares each […]

by Dhara Wijayatilake Director and Secretary General of the International ADR Center Sri Lanka ratified the UN Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation, popularly known as the Singapore Convention on Mediation, held recently. As at today, the Convention has 56 signatories and has been ratified by 14 nations. The Convention was developed by […]

By Rathindra Kuruwita The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) has significantly overestimated the cost of electricity production and transmission for 2024 and this is reflected in their estimated cost of production, says MP Gamini Waleboda, head of the Sectoral Oversight Committee on Alleviating the Impact of the Economic Crisis. The overestimation is around Rs 140 billion, […]

In a welcome development in relation to Sri Lanka’s regional policy, some state functionaries of the Ranil Wickremesinghe regime have gone on record as having stated that Sri Lanka would be taking notable cognizance of India’s security concerns, going forward. This is as it should be. None of India’s immediate neighbours could afford to overlook […]

By Shamindra Ferdinando With the presidential election scheduled for later this year, political parties represented in Parliament have stepped up efforts to forge alliances. In terms of the Constitution, presidential elections will have to be conducted between Sept 18 and Oct 18, 2024. The last presidential election was held in Nov 2019. Even though the […]

Monday 26th February, 2024 Sri Lanka is a nation in the hara-kiri mode. It needs no enemies; it has become its worst enemy. It continues to maintain a bunch of failed, corrupt politicians and their bureaucratic lackeys responsible for ruining the economy and hell-bent on degrading vital national assets which they are planning to dispose […]