The Cabinet of Ministers approved the bill to amend laws to ban cattle slaughter in the third week of October. While this is a contentious policy measure, it did not come as a surprise as the Prime Minister proposed the same policy just over a year a

Trade has historically been a powerful driver of economic growth and poverty alleviation in Asia, though the momentum of lowering trade barriers has slowed in recent years.

At first glance, the 2022 budget presented recently in Parliament looks impressive. This was the Finance Minister’s maiden Budget Speech and though it was way too long (so much so that he nearly ran out of gas before completing it),

The Sri Lankan tea industry for the period January to September 2021 witnessed an upward momentum with production and exports whilst recorded a decline in the national average when compared to the same period in 2020.

The decision to gradually reopen Sri Lankan schools, which have been shut for close to 20 months since the COVID-19 first struck, is a welcome move.

Budget 2022 appears to be more of a stop-gap budget rather than one that sets out a framework on how revenues will continue to be mobilised and deficit financing requirements met over time.

The Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) of Sri Lanka in collaboration with UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) launched a Policy Paper on the Digital Economy of Sri Lanka at a virtual event held recently.

Budget 2022 has signalled policy continuity in terms of maintaining mainstream corporate tax rates and investment incentives continuing from end-2019, according to the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (CCC).

The highly awaited annual budget seminar, organised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (CA Sri Lanka), will be held today featuring top government officials and business leaders, who will share their insights and observations on t

SLASSCOM yesterday welcomed the proposals put forward with regard to the IT-BPM industry by the Finance Minister in his National Budget 2022 speech.

The incumbent government set out the path for reviving the post-COVID-19 economy in its 2022 national budget this week.

Sri Lanka’s social protection and food insecurity amidst COVID-19 came into focus at the third and final session of a webinar series held recently to mark the release of the ‘Sri Lanka: State of Economy 2021’ report, the annual flagship publica

The government promises a non-traditional budget this weekend, as the nation awaits the details of a fiscal policy programme it hopes will spell the way out of the current economic crisis. Alongside impetus to drive production, entrepreneurship and i

Successive governments have run fiscal deficits. Inadequate revenue collection and unrestrained government expenditure have worsened the country’s fiscal position.

Labour Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva is proposing a private sector pension scheme and an insurance scheme to cover employees who lose employment according to mawbima.lk.

The Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) ahead of the Budget 2022 presentation has forwarded the following proposals too to the Finance Ministry for consideration.

Ahead of the presentation of the national budget for 2022, the Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka (IPS) outlines some policy areas of concern and puts forward proposals to be considered for inclusion in the forthcoming budget:

“Sri Lankan children make a dangerous climb for online school,” read the headline of a recent article carried by Al Jazeera.

For much of its post-independence period Sri Lanka has been characterised by twin deficits: fiscal deficits and deficits in the external current account. What this implies is the country spends more than it earns and consumes more than it produces.

As we all know, climate change (CC) is fuelling heat waves, flooding, drought, cyclones, etc. and these extreme weather patterns are costing globally US $ 320 billion a year. The main issue confronting the agriculture productivity is stemming from th

Global economic developments have impacted Sri Lanka’s external sector performance and the economy overall.

In Sri Lanka, small business is a very big deal. The numbers tell the story. The Census and Statistics Department, in its decennial Economic Census of 2013/14, found that over 99 percent of all business establishments are micro, small and medium ente

The energy industry globally operates with fluctuating prices that determine the final price of LPG across markets. Globally, the LPG prices have been shifting with the demand and currency discrepancies, causing costs to soar and markets to tumble, a

The recent European Union (EU) monitoring mission visit to Sri Lanka on the Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP) Plus trade concessions scheme, has ignited much speculation locally, on the potential costs of losing GSP+ to the EU.

The CMA Sri Lanka COVID-19 SME Development Committee has formulated the ‘Made in Sri Lanka’ project to obtain the government support in budget 2022.

The new Securities and Exchange Commission Act No. 19 of 2021 (‘the Act’) has been certified by the Speaker on 21st September 2021 and has thus become law. It repeals and replaces the Securities and Exchange Commission Act No. 36 of 1987.

One consignment of potassium chloride fertiliser arrived on September 14, presumably to be applied for the paddy sector. The potassium chloride is not an organic material. However, the input materials approved for organic farming need not only be org

In his novel published in 1891, tiled ‘The Light that Failed’, Rudyard Kipling wrote the phrase ‘biting the bullet’ to express the thought that fortitude can be gained by ‘biting a bullet’! As things are, should the President and governme

Sri Lanka’s macro-economic outlook amidst the COVID-19 pandemic came under the spotlight at a webinar panel discussion held on October 11, to mark the release of the IPS’ flagship report ‘Sri Lanka: State of the Economy 2021’.

Since the first announcement in June 2020, expectations have been high on the potential of the Eravur Fabric Processing Park to catalyse a new era for Sri Lankan textile and apparel manufacture.