New high-tech sports gloves venture
Dipped Products PLC, a subsidiary of the Hayleys Group, recently commenced commercial operations at its state-of-the-art manufacturing plant in Biyagama, to produce precision engineered sports gloves. Picture shows a worker at the new facility.
Debt restructuring talks with bilateral creditors get underway
Sri Lankan fiscal and monetary authorities have begun discussions with bilateral creditors on debt restructuring of US$ 7.1 billion out of the total $25.9 billion owed to external creditors. Sri Lanka is now holding debt restructuring talks with Paris Club members together with India, while discussing with China separately. Three baseline restructuring scenarios with six-year [...]
Coffee houses turn to local brew to beat high prices in foreign coffee
Caffeine hunters in Colombo that were a staple in the popular coffee houses pre-pandemic are dwindling, so much so that these outlets cannot sustain themselves. Coffee houses are what initially came into being in the late 1990s and started with The Commons in Colombo. So many franchises have entered Colombo during the last two decades [...]
Ceylon Tea markets in crisis
Sri Lanka’s tea exporting markets are faced with a number of issues that has contributed to an overall drop in export volumes so far this year. Colombo Tea Traders Association (CTTA) Immediate Past President Jayantha Karunaratne told the Business Times that the markets are faced with serious issues. Explaining further, he said with Russia under [...]
Special court to fast-track white collar financial crimes
The Central Bank (CB) is urging setting up a special court to fast-track white-collar financial crimes. Officials say that already there is a significant complexity for government authorities and regulators when combatting offences such as money laundering (AML) and other financial crime. “They are long drawn and take a lot of time. It is already [...]
Transforming agriculture
In the 1960s during a grow-more-food campaign, schools were encouraged to take students to paddy fields, allow them to get into the mud and understand how farmers till the land. The farmer, then, was king. Not anymore. Today he is eking out a living, struggling to survive, amidst a mountain of debt. In terms of [...]
Learning and unlearning from the crisis
There is one critical lesson that Sri Lankans can learn from its economic crisis. By experience, however, I know that “learning” is not an easy thing to do particularly after we leave our childhood, because it requires also “unlearning” what we have already learnt in the past. Apparently, unlearning is much more difficult than learning. [...]
Recent CAA Gazette on network marketing questioned
The Consumer Affairs Authority’s (CAA) recent Gazette for entities engaged in network marketing has some stark ambiguities, those familiar with the industry say. The Gazette pertaining to all direct traders involved in the sale of multiple specified products and companies covering, solar lighting systems, phones and accessories, furniture, cleaning agents, shoes, stationery, kitchen utensils, and [...]
More US travellers visiting Sri Lanka
Stability is really important for tourism to re-bounce from the pandemic and economic crisis. Sri Lanka is seeing a vast number of US travellers visiting the country, with the slow recovery in the economy. The world’s largest adventure travel company, Intrepid, Managing Director for North America, Matt Berna made this comment to the Business Times [...]
Govt. to introduce wealth, property and road taxes etc
The cash-strapped Government has taken a firm policy decision to overhaul taxation again by introducing a chain of new direct taxes including wealth tax, property tax, wealth transfer tax and road tax in the next two years. The ongoing progressive tax reforms will be maintained with new adjustments as and when necessary to strengthen personal [...]
‘Lable>’, the world’s first manufacturer of adaptive clothing for the disabled
Twinery – Innovations by MAS – the changemakers of innovative clothing across the world, together with Linea Aqua, in a move to break the barriers that prevent persons with disabilities better integrate into society, aim to break through the stigma surrounding disability by changing the narratives that discriminate. Ranil Vitarana, CEO, Twinery – Innovations by [...]
Ramesh Jayasekara new Director/CEO at Seylan
Seylan Bank PLC, on Thursday as announced the appointment of Ramesh Jayasekara as its new Director/Chief Executive Officer, effective from May 1, 2023. Having joined Seylan Bank in 2011 as Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Jayasekara was later appointed Chief Risk Officer in 2016 and assumed the role of Deputy General Manager – Corporate Banking from [...]
Standard Chartered executes its first INR transaction
With the recent introduction of Indian Rupees (INR) as a designated foreign currency by the Central Bank, Standard Chartered Sri Lanka has completed its first INR transaction for a multinational corporate client in the form of an outward telegraphic transfer between Sri Lanka and the bank’s office in Mumbai India. The transaction was executed via [...]
NDB wins at LankaPay Technnovation Awards
NDB Bank was recently awarded a Silver Award for Financial Institution of the Year for Adopting LankaSign Digital Signatures and a Merit Award for Bank of the Year for Excellence in Customer Convenience in Category B, at the Lankapay Technnovation Awards 2023 held at the Shangri-La Hotel, Colombo. In keeping in line with the bank’s [...]
Rs. 1.5 bn short to run Suwa Seriya ambulances
While the Treasury couldn’t fund completely the Suwa Seriya 1990 ambulance service that has a budgeted expense of Rs. 3.9 billion per annum, top conglomerates and certain individuals in the country are funding the initiative by adopting an ambulance for Rs. 5 million. The government has approved a portion of the budgeted expense of Rs. [...]
Sri Lanka to build large logistics complex in Colombo Port
Sri Lanka’s aspiration to become a major logistics hub in the region took a giant leap forward recently with the launch of a project to build the largest commercial and logistics complex in South Asia in the Port of Colombo with an investment of US$ 392 million. Agreements for the construction and operation of the [...]
Union Bank launches Toastmasters Club
Union Bank (UB) recently announced the launch of its first ever Toastmasters Club at an event at the bank’s head office with the installation of 18 Toastmasters including seven Executive committee members as the inaugural office bearers for the year. Establishing the Toastmasters Club is part of the bank’s Talent Development strategy focusing on enhancing [...]