As Sri Lanka is faced with the added challenge of dealing with the social consequences arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) expressed concerns on the country’s rising levels of poverty and widening ine

Headline inflation, as measured by the year-on-year (YoY) change in the Colombo Consumer Price Index (CCPI), increased marginally to 4.1 percent in November 2020, from 4.0 percent in October 2020.

The much-awaited Sri Lanka Economic Summit will be inaugurated today, with the patronage of chief guest President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

While cautioning on a recent phenomenon where investment advice is dispensed on social media platforms by individuals and various other outfits, the market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), urges investors to obtain investment

Kahawatte Plantations PLC board of directors has resolved to capitalise Rs.800 million of related party debt via a private placement, at Rs.41 per share, to controlling shareholders.

The government ramped up its borrowings in October as the virus resurgence necessitated pumping more money into the hands of the public while powering the essential services required to control the spreading of the virus.

Sri Lanka’s vehicle registrations in October crashed to a new record low across the board, including all commercial vehicle categories, due to the economic impact of the second wave of COVID-19 outbreak and import restrictions on personal vehicle i

The director board of Hatton National Bank PLC (HNB) has resolved to raise up to Rs.7 billion via a Basel III-compliant debenture issue.

Two vessels owned by global French transportation and shipping group CMA CGM made their maiden call at HIP last week.

Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Mahinda Rajapaksa is to make a statement in parliament on the restructuring of The Finance Company next week.

Maldives is witnessing a slow, but gradual increase in tourist arrivals with over 78,000 travellers having visited the archipelagos within the March- September period despite the global pandemic.

Seylan Bank last Friday told the market that it decided to postpone a debenture issue to raise up to Rs.10 billion announced in the latter part of July this year due to current volatile market conditions.

The proportion of new loans granted during the ten months to October at 10 percent or below has quadrupled indicating that more loans are being disbursed at lower rates than at any other time in history.

The asset quality of Sri Lanka’s banking sector has improved in October contrary to forecasts of a major deterioration floated by rating agencies, sector analysts and economists.

Banks’ decision to freeze shareholders’ cash dividends will be reviewed in due course taking into consideration the performance of the sector, as the banks weathered the pandemic’s headwinds effectively while remaining largely unscathed despite

The World Bank’s new Country Director for Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka, Faris Hadad-Zervos, completed his first visit to Sri Lanka yesterday.

A protester kicks away a tear gas canister fired by police to disperse farmers at a road block as they try to march to New Delhi to protest against the central government’s recent agricultural reforms at the Delhi-Haryana border in Kundli yesterday

Delivering on its customer promise, Emirates has completed an intensive programme to clear its backlog of refund requests which was caused by pandemic-related travel disruption.

Asian markets maintained their upward momentum yesterday, heading into the weekend on a strong note with investors continuing to take heart from the prospect of vaccines being rolled out in the next few weeks.

Germany, traditionally hostile to government borrowing, will take on 180 billion euros in new debt in 2021 as it grapples with the economic fallout from the coronavirus crisis, according to a draft budget agreed yesterday.

China yesterday said it would impose anti-dumping measures on Australian wine, in a further ramping up of tensions between Beijing and Canberra.

Italy is to offer Europe’s first coronavirus-free corridor with the United States for passengers who have tested negative for Covid-19, scrapping the obligation for new arrivals to quarantine.

While it is natural for both lending and deposit rates to follow the key benchmark rates set by the Monetary Board, the Central Bank since of late appears to have been perturbed by the pace at which the deposit rates are coming down, compared to the

Defending the temporary import restrictions imposed by the government, the Central Bank (CB) stressed that the restrictions are in line with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.

Private credit continued to grow in October, albeit at a slower pace from a month earlier, as virus-related lockdowns in key populous regions in the country posed a setback to economic growth. The total outstanding private sector credit grew by Rs.5

The Central Bank (CB) yesterday said that the delay in releasing the second quarter (2Q) GDP estimates by the Department of Census and Statistics (DCS) is unacceptable.

Asia Securities Wealth Management (Pvt.) Ltd, the investment management arm of Asia Securities, one of Sri Lanka’s leading investment firms, recently launched the Asia Securities Money Market Fund.

India’s Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will deliver the keynote address at Sri Lanka Economic Summit (SLES) 2020.

Investment bank Asia Capital PLC (ACAP) will soon broad base its shareholding to be in compliance with the public floating requirements stipulated by the Listing Rules of the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE), a company statement said.

The Port of Colombo, which had its operations impacted last week due to some port workers testing positive for COVID-19, announced yesterday that it is getting back on track and returning to normalcy by taking the necessary precautions to prevent fu