Sri Lanka

COLOMBO, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka has made 327 billion rupees (900 million U.S. dollars) last year by exporting rubber products, the Rubber Development Department said on Saturday.

Director General of the department Madawa Kulasuriya told the media that this was a slight drop from 2021 revenue, which was 1 billion dollars.

However, the South Asian country intends to increase revenue from rubber products to 3 billion dollars by 2025, he said.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court ruled Thursday that inaction by the country’s former president and four others led to Easter Sunday bomb attacks in 2019 that killed nearly 270 people and ordered them to pay compensation for violating the basic rights of the victims and their families.

COLOMBO, Jan 10 (NNN-XINHUA) – Sri Lanka’s treasury is running out of funds, as a serious economic crisis continues to affect the nation, the country’s cabinet spokesman said, today.

Cabinet Spokesman, Bandula Gunawardena, told reporters that, funds collected through taxes have seen a decline.

As a result, the treasury is running short of funds to make payments, said Gunawardena.

Gunawardena said, the economic crisis that hit the country in 2022, has affected the income of the treasury.

COLOMBO, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka and Thailand are to hold the third round of negotiations on the free trade agreement between the two nations on Jan. 9 and Jan. 10 in Colombo, Sri Lankan President's Media Division (PMD) said on Sunday.

Twenty-six delegates from Thailand will attend the discussions, the PMD said.

The discussions will focus on topics including trade in goods, trade in services, investments, rules of origin, custom cooperation, trade facilitation and economic cooperation, the PMD said.

COLOMBO, Jan. 4 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka's health authorities said on Wednesday that those who were yet to receive a booster dose of the COVID-19 vaccine should receive China's Sinopharm vaccines as coronavirus infections were likely to rise in the island country this year.

Chief Epidemiologist of the Health Ministry's Epidemiology Unit Samitha Ginige told reporters that 6 million people out of those above the age of 18 in Sri Lanka have not received their booster dose as yet.

"We have 1.8 million Sinopharm vaccines in stock," Ginige said.

COLOMBO, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lankan stocks gained on the first trading day of 2023, with a total turnover of 1.87 billion rupees (5.15 million U.S. dollars) at the end of trading on Monday.

The All-Share Price Index (ASPI), which measures the movements of the overall market, gained 0.23 percent, while the Standard & Poor's Sri Lanka 20 (S&P SL20), which follows the performance of 20 leading publicly traded companies listed in the Colombo Stock Exchange, gained 0.19 percent.

COLOMBO, Dec 29 (NNN-XINHUA) – Sri Lanka’s second international airport, in the southern town of Mattala, resumed international flight operation today, after a lapse of two years.

A passenger plane from Russia’s Red Wings Airlines, landed at the Mattala international airport with around 400 passengers.

The Red Wings Airlines is to operate two flights a week to the Mattala international airport, which has mostly been used over the last two years for refueling and for planes diverted in emergency situations.

COLOMBO, Dec 25 (NNN-XINHUA) – Sri Lanka recorded over 50,000 international tourist arrivals, for the first 20 days of Dec, a significant improvement compared to previous months, according to latest data released by the tourism authority.

The daily average of arrivals in Dec is over 2,500, and in the first 11 months of this year, the figure was around 1,900, data from Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) showed.

The total number of international tourist arrivals for the year to Dec 20, was 678,392, according to the SLTDA.

COLOMBO, Dec 16 (NNN-XINHUA) – Sri Lanka’s Department of Census and Statistics, said yesterday that, the country’s estimated gross domestic product (GDP) contracted by 11.8 percent, year-on-year, in the third quarter of 2022.

The GDP for the third quarter at constant (2015) price was 2,884 billion rupees (7.9 billion U.S. dollars), the department said.

The department said, the overall agriculture, industry and services activities, declined by 8.7 percent, 21.2 percent and 2.6 percent, respectively, in the quarter.

COLOMBO, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lankan Minister of Power and Energy Kanchana Wijesekera said on Thursday that the South Asian country is discussing nuclear energy cooperation with Russia.

The minister said he met with the Russian Ambassador to Sri Lanka Levan Dzhagaryan Thursday morning and discussed the requirements of Sri Lanka's energy sector.

"We discussed cooperation on fuel requirements, refinery operations, challenges in coal supply and the memorandum of understanding signed for nuclear energy cooperation with Rosatom," he said.