Following are some responses from three economists to the guest column by Chandra Jayaratne titled ‘Important issues’ for Sri Lankan legislators, the Executive, policymakers, Central Bankers, economists and thought leaders to ponder over published on 2 February 1) I disagree with the Stiglitz-Krugman line. My diagnosis is that Europe is in this mess for two ...

Reuters: A new guessing game is about to begin: will China’s incoming generation of leaders show more courage than the current incumbents in tackling deep economic imbalances that threaten to bring growth to a sudden stop? The question, easier to frame than to answer, is critical for the world economy. China has accounted for about ...

Rapidly expanding, Divasa Finance Limited recently announced the appointment of Prof. Arjuna De Silva and Mr. Vasula Premawardhana as non-executive directors of the company. Prof. Arjuna De Silva (MBBS, MD, MSc [Oxon], FRCP [Lond], FCCP) is a professor in medicine at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Kelaniya Sri Lanka. He obtained the MRCP (UK) ...

Following is the keynote address delivered by Senior Minister of Human Resources D.E.W. Gunasekera at the South Asian Regional Consultative Seminar on Human Development and Measurement of Human Development Progress, held at the IPS Auditorium from 30-31 January 2012 Public understanding of human development was galvanised by the appearance of the first Human Development Report ...

Increasing risks and probability of natural disasters Consider the volcanic eruptions in Iceland and Congo, the destructive earthquakes that hit Christchurch, eastern Turkey and the East Coast of Tohoku in Japan, as well as the recent flooding in Thailand and one thing becomes clear about natural disasters – their risks, probability and consequences are higher ...

No country immune from current crisis, says Lagarde Need to build firewalls to restore confidence Countries must tailor their budget responses to individual situation   Rapidly restoring confidence in both Europe and globally is crucial to protecting the battered international financial system and rebuilding the ailing recovery, threatened particularly by strains within the euro zone, ...

The Australian College of Business and Technology (ACBT) in association with Australian government-owned Edith Cowan University (ECU), offers students who have completed their Advanced Level examinations an opportunity to receive a globally recognised Australian degree qualification right here in Sri Lanka. Edith Cowan University is listed in the Commonwealth Universities yearbook and the Internat...

Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna announced in Colombo a substantial expansion in the scholarships currently being offered by Government of India to meritorious Sri Lankan students. Under this initiative, the number of scholarships and Self-Finance slots for Undergraduate, Masters and Phd Courses is being increased from the existing 113 slots to 270 per year. ...

Facing the short-term economic challengesThe macroeconomic imbalances Sri Lanka has achieved a growth rate of 8.3% last year and inflation fell to 4.9% year-on-year in December 2011. These are noteworthy achievements at a time when the global economic landscape has been hostile with a slowdown in the US and a crisis in Europe; key markets ...

Developing countries should prepare for further downside risks, as Euro Area debt problems and weakening growth in several big emerging economies are dimming global growth prospects, the World Bank said yesterday in the newly-released Global Economic Prospects (GEP) 2012. The bank has lowered its growth forecast for 2012 to 5.4 per cent for developing countries ...

Reuters: China’s economy grew at its weakest pace in 2-1/2 years in the latest quarter and it appeared headed for an even sharper slowdown in the coming months as export demand fades and the housing market falters. The fourth-quarter year-on-year growth of 8.9 percent, although slightly stronger than the 8.7 percent that economists polled by ...

LTTE rump groups and pro-LTTE organisations are trying hard to achieve their separatist ideology in the countryDefence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Tuesday said that there is a possibility of the re-emergence of the LTTE in Sri Lanka, as LTTE sympathisers abroad are still struggling to achieve the LTTE’s separatist ideology in the country. He made ...

“Our sense is that if we do not act boldly and if we do not act together, the economy around the world runs the risk of a downward spiral of uncertainty, financial instability and potential collapse of global demand… we could run the risk of what some commentators are already calling the lost decade” – ...

If the Governor of Central Bank has an urge to enter politics, he should come to Parliament without playing politics inside the CB, charges United National Party Parliamentarian and well-known Economist Dr. Harsha de Silva. Dr. de Silva notes that Governor Nivard Cabraal should respect the sanctity of the Central Bank and therefore if Cabraal ...

BERNE (Reuters) : Swiss National Bank Chairman Philipp Hildebrand resigned with immediate effect on Monday, saying he could not prove he had been unaware of a controversial currency trade made by his wife and wanted to protect the integrity of the central bank. Hildebrand’s decision to relinquish one of the top 10 central banking jobs ...

I would like to thank the Organisation of Professional Associations for inviting me to be the Guest of Honour at this Induction Ceremony. I also take this opportunity to wish the incoming President and the members of the Council every success in taking this organisation to greater heights in future. Sri Lanka today is a ...

A Sri Lankan has been awarded one of the most prestigious international scholarships to network with the next generation of Asian leaders by the Government of Singapore. Duminda Ariyasinghe, Executive Director (Investment Promotion and Media) at the Board of Investment of Sri Lanka (BOI), has been awarded a Lee Kuan Yew (LKY) Fellowship by the ...

The third year undergraduates of the University of Colombo’s Business Administration degree program visited the Colombo Stock Exchange recently. The group of 120 undergraduates was introduced to the basics and inner working of Sri Lanka’s dynamic Stock Exchange through a discussion and a visit to the trading floor. The field visit was organised by the ...

Sampath Bank with effect from 1 January has got a new Chairman and several new youthful additions to its Board of Directors. The Bank announced on Friday that at a Board of Directors meeting held on 29 December Chairman I.W. Senanayake decided to step down with effect from 31 December. Whilst accepting this decision the ...

An International Research Conference on Transdisciplinary Perspective on Accounting will be held in Sri Lanka on 4 and 5 January at the Central Bank’s Centre for Banking Studies Auditorium at Rajagiriya, Colombo from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The conference has been jointly organised by the Department of Accounting of the University of Sri Jayawardenapura, ...

Central Bank has approved the five new nominees to the Board of Sampath Bank Plc in place of an equal number retiring by next week. The five nominees who are qualified and professionals in their respective fields are former International Finance Corporation (IFC) Sri Lanka and Maldives Resident Representative Sanjiva Senanayake, Orit Apparels Chairman Channa ...

The Monetary Board, at its meeting held on 16 December 2011, has promoted four Staff Class Grade IV officers, A. Kamalasiri, R. Dheerasinghe, S.S. Ratnayake and K.D. Ranasinghe to the post of Assistant Governor with effect from 1 January, 2012. These promotions have been made in line with the succession plan of the Bank to ...

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has decided to create a separate category of Non Banking Financial Company – Micro Finance Institution (NBFC-MFI). This implements a recommendation of the Malegam Committee Report on Micro Finance in India, which was appointed subsequent to the MF crisis due to indebted farmer suicides in Andhra Pradesh. The NBFC-MFI ...

Etihad Airways on Monday announced it was buying 10 more Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners in a deal which will make it the largest operator of the aircraft type in the world. The airline has also ordered another two Boeing 777 Freighters for its fast growing Etihad Crystal Cargo operation. The 12 additional aircraft are valued at ...

We are still stuck in the winter of our discontent! By Jude Fernando Groundviews.org: “Nearly all children nowadays were horrible. What was worst of all was that by means of such organisations as the Spies they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages, and yet this produced in them no tendency whatever to rebel against ...

Order increases Boeing’s 787 customer base in Middle EastBoeing and Oman Air, the Sultanate of Oman’s flagship carrier recently announced an order for six Boeing 787-8s at the Dubai Airshow. The airline completed an arrangement with Boeing and Kuwait-based leasing company ALAFCO to transfer existing orders for the six Dreamliners from ALAFCO to Oman Air. ...

Ray Wijewardene (1924-2010) was a true Renaissance Man. An alumnus of Cambridge and Harvard Universities and a former Chancellor of Moratuwa University, Ray excelled in many different areas of human endeavor: agriculture, aviation, engineering design, inventions, renewable energy technologies and water sports. A Fellow of the Sri Lanka National Academy of Sciences and the Institution ...

The outstanding learner awards of Cambridge Ordinary and Advanced Level 2011 was held at the Ceylon Continental Hotel in Colombo recently where high achievers of the examination were rewarded. The Chief Guest at the occasion was the Minister of Education Bandula Gunawardena. Here, shows Uditha Devapriya of Lyceum International School, Nugegoda, receives the award from ...

What do nation states do when their politicians ruin their economies by serial lying to the voters, running up huge domestic and international financial deficits, uncontrolled corruption, cannot keep interest rates at reasonable rates, cannot control inflation nor hold the exchange rate steady and run the country on an unsustainable basis, depending on what has ...

A striking feature of both the Mahinda Chinthana – A Vision for the Future and the Budget 2012 is the open rejection of neoliberal economic models and the portrayal of the government policy as a special model developed indigenously for the country. Mahinda Chinthana rejects neoliberal models apparently on the ground of their high failure ...