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

Despite the massive customer deposit pile-up at banks, thanks to COVID-19 restrictions, Sri Lanka’s licensed finance companies have failed to have a piece of the pie or at least to cling on to their existing deposit base.

The writ application filed by the Centre for Environmental Justice against the Colombo Port City Project in 2015 was dismissed by the Court of Appeal, yesterday.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) yesterday expressed optimism over the Asia-Pacific leading the way in navigating through the turbulent times and said the region would show governments across the world the recovery path to follow.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) in a resolution yesterday called on governments across the world to reopen borders for travel, a move which would be possible by employing the association’s proposed systematic testing of internati

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) yesterday signed a US $ 165 million loan agreement to provide immediate financing support for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which have been severely affected by the coro

The Hotels Association of Sri Lanka (THASL) in a statement yesterday hailed Budget 2021 as a “pragmatic financial road map”, while praising the government’s moves to encourage local businesses via import substitution and for maintaining a stabl

Sri Lanka’s tea export volumes declined by 10.4 percent year-on-year (YoY) to 23.1 million kgs in October, despite a 2.1 percent YoY improvement in tea production in the month, according to the Tea Exporters Association (TEA).

While descending interest rates are generally considered a bane for banks, the same phenomenon acted as a blessing for the sector bringing in billions worth of capital gains on government treasuries they held, potentially offsetting any negative impa

Sri Lanka’s national prices descended to a six-month low in October predominantly on some ease in food prices and non-food prices over the same month in 2019, the latest data on inflation measured by the National Consumer Price Index showed.

With Sri Lanka’s tourism industry grappling to stay afloat amidst the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are scrambling to find ways to remain competitive and resilient.