World Bank ‘ready’ to provide funds for COVID-19 vaccine
The World Bank has made available more than US$315 million in funding support to Sri Lanka this year so far for COVID-19 work while it is also ready to provide funds to the country when a vaccine is available, the bank’s new Country Director Faris Hadad-Zervos said on Thursday. In an email interview with the [...]
Major shipping line pulls out of Colombo Port
The Colombo Port’s largest vessel operator MSC has announced a temporary pull out from Colombo bypassing the congestion and thereby aggravating the crisis at the region’s key shipping hub. MSC is the largest client of the Colombo Port handling 30 per cent of total volumes and amounting to 60 per cent of the Jaya Container [...]
Budget 2021 to generate Rs.2.3 trillion revenue
Budget 2021 will be presented in Parliament on Tuesday with the focus on achieving economic development for the people and creating a ‘caring and healthy society’ amidst COVID-19 challenges, government officials said. The proposals have been devised to strengthen the government’s development programme of prosperity supported by a robust safety net, and state intervention to [...]
Low deposit interest rates drive retailers
The Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) is seeing a flock of retail and High Networth Individuals (HNWI) – essentially due to low deposit interest rates, analysts said. “This trend can be sustained with the low interest rate regime,” a stockbroker said. But some analysts are not so sure. “There is a revolving trading pattern right now [...]
Colombo port hit by COVID-19
Sri Lanka Port Authority (SLPA) is currently re-hiring retired staff in a bid to ensure the smooth flow of operations at the port as a result of an increasing number of workers being detected with COVID-19 and many more being quarantined. SLPA Chairman Gen. Daya Ratnayaka told the Business Times that they have been asking [...]
UML hopeful of consistent state policy
United Motors PLC (UML), a company which faced the brunt of frequent government policy changes during last five years, has started on new developments on the back of top line growth of Rs. 6 billion for the first half of this financial year. UML Group recorded Rs. 9 billion turnover for the last FY year, [...]
Someone’s mother, someone’s sister
As I was contemplating a topic for this week’s column with the focus ideally being COVID-19-related on Thursday morning, the phone rang. It was a friend from Male, the capital city of the Maldives. “How are you?” he asked. After a warm greeting since I hadn’t spoken to him for a while, I asked: “It’s [...]
Dilapidated bungalow
Some of my friends raised their eyebrows after reading what appeared in this column in the past few weeks. Sri Lanka is not a business-friendly country with its lack of “economic freedom” and not among the “innovative” nations in the world; neither is Sri Lanka a “happy” nation in the world. All what I wrote [...]
ECT to India gets Cabinet approval
Trade unions against the privatisation of the East Container Terminal (ECT) on Thursday confirmed they had received confirmation that the government has approved handing over of terminal operations to India. Speaking on the sidelines of a media briefing in Colombo JVP MP and National Trade Union Centre Convenor Wasantha Samarasinghe told the Business Times that [...]
IFC, Aussie Government help create, retain jobs for 12,000 SL women
A 2-year partnership, known as SheWorks Sri Lanka, has led to a 12 per cent increase in the number of women employed by 15 of the country’s leading companies, equating to over 12,000 more women in the workforce. Initiated by Women in Work, a partnership between IFC—a member of the World Bank Group—and the Australian [...]
NDB swims against the COVID-19 tide
Pre-tax profitability was up by 2 per cent to Rs. 7.7 billion at the NDB group for the period ending September 2020 while post-tax profit was up by 34 per cent to Rs. 4.5 billion. In a statement to shareholders, the bank said it recorded yet another quarter of sound performance amidst macro-economic challenges brought [...]
Debt moratorium extension for further 6 months to ease problems of borrowers
Amidst increasing complaints and grievances of COVID-19 affected individuals including leasing installment payers, the Central Bank has extended the existing debt moratorium for a further period of six months commencing from 1 October 2020 to 31 March 2021. A large number of affected leasing installment payers including three wheeler drivers have already made representations to [...]
Dialog Axiata gifts fully-functional ICU to Homagama Base Hospital
Dialog Axiata PLC (Dialog), at the request of the Ministry of Health, gifted a fully functional 10 bed Intensive Care Unit (ICU) to the Homagama Base Hospital this week. The company said in a media release that in April 2020, Dialog pledged a sum of Rs. 200 million towards the upliftment of Critical Health Infrastructure [...]
Learning in the times of COVID-19
In an attempt to contain COVID-19, the number of children and youth not attending schools or universities is rising. With no end to the pandemic in sight, most of the world’s population had to make a sudden shift to the online world while adapting to new ways of learning and working. The island-wide curfew imposed [...]
ComBank says steady performance despite pandemic
Commercial Bank Group’s profit before income tax recorded a decline of 2.10 per cent over the corresponding period to total Rs. 16.394 billion for the nine months ending September 2020, a trend seen in many banks. The group’s income tax charge for the period, at Rs. 5.219 billion, was marginally down by 0.15 per cent [...]
Hayleys Group grows amidst COVID-19 pandemic
The Hayleys Group, instead of being cowed down by the COVID-19 pandemic, has turned the disaster into an opportunity – reporting a record profit in the first six months of FY 2020/21, with pre-tax profit nearly tripling to Rs. 5.52 billion compared to the corresponding period of last year. “The period under review reflects the [...]
Like many banks, Sampath Bank suffers from COVID-19 crisis
The financial results of Sampath Bank, amidst the havoc caused on the economy by the COVID–19 pandemic, have suffered in the first nine months of 2020. According to a bank statement on Thursday, the bank recorded a profit before tax (PBT) of Rs.6.99 billion for the nine months ending September 2020, a 33.1 per cent [...]
HNB posts Rs. 10.3 bn pre-tax profit in 9-months 2020
Hatton National Bank (HNB) has reported a Profit Before Tax (PBT) of Rs. 10.3 billion for the 9-month period ending September 2020, down from 23.1 per cent YoY compared to the corresponding period of 2019. Profit After Tax (PAT) of Rs. 7.7 billion represented a drop of 3.8 per cent YoY from last year, the [...]