Sri Lanka

COLOMBO, Mar 6 (NNN-XINHUA) – Sri Lanka’s Tourism Ministry, today announced that, diesel vehicles registered with the Tourism Development Authority will be given priority access to fuel, at state-owned bus depots.

Vehicles that qualify for this scheme will be given an identity sticker, local media reported.

Colombo, Mar 3 (PTI) Sri Lanka's economy was facing "mounting challenges" with public debt reaching "unsustainable levels", the IMF has said, calling for urgent reforms in the island nation's economy as it is facing the worst economic crisis.

Sri Lanka is currently reeling under a severe foreign exchange crisis with falling reserves and the government is unable to foot the bill for essential imports.

Colombo, Mar 3 (AP) Sri Lanka's already dire economic crisis has deepened as oil prices hover near USD 110 a barrel. Vehicles are stranded with empty tanks, power cuts are depriving students of study time for exams and shopping mall air conditioners are being switched off to conserve energy.

The South Asian island nation already was so short of hard currency that authorities had restricted imports of cars and fertilizer. It's now having to scrape into dwindling reserves to pay for ever more costly oil needed to keep the economy running.

COLOMBO, Feb 25 (NNN-XINHUA) – Sri Lankan Prime Minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa, yesterday, instructed officials of the ministry of urban development and housing, to complete the country’s all housing projects for low-income families by 2024.

At a meeting, the prime minister also instructed officials to implement urban development projects, in accordance with the national action plan.

Additional Secretary to the ministry, Dr. M.M.S.B. Yalegama, said that, it is planned 50,000 houses will be built for low-income families by 2024.

COLOMBO, Jan 28 (NNN-XINHUA) – Sri Lanka will reclaim nearly 100 acres of land adjacent to the southern port of Galle, to be leased to investors for mixed development projects, the state-owned Daily News reported today.

Head of Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA), Prasantha Jayamanna, was quoted as saying that, the total required investment for the project would be between 175 and 200 million U.S. dollars, which are expected to be funded by local and foreign private players.

COLOMBO, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, Sri Lanka is facing its most serious financial crisis in years, raising doubts about its ability to pay its creditors.

On Tuesday, the island nation will repay $500 million towards an international sovereign bond, the first tranche of a total of $4.5 billion that it needs to pay back this year, to avoid the first default in its history. 

Here are the key details about Sri Lanka's mounting debt problems.

DEBT PROFILE

Colombo, Jan 13 (PTI) A top Sri Lankan court here has sentenced to death a former prisons commissioner over the Welikada Prison riot in 2012 which killed at least 27 inmates.

The Colombo High Court trial on Wednesday found the former superintendent Emil Ranjan Lamahewa guilty and passed the death sentence.

The first defendant in the case, the then Inspector of the Police Narcotics Bureau, Neomal Rangajeewa was acquitted from all charges.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was in Sri Lanka on Sunday seeking to advance Beijing’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative as the island nation tries to rescue itself from a foreign currency and debt crisis, partly due to infrastructure built with Chinese loans that don’t generate revenue.

Wang arrived in Sri Lanka on Saturday from the Maldives on the last leg of a multi-city trip that also took him to Eritrea, Kenya and Comoros in Africa.

Colombo, Dec 3 (PTI) The Chinese embassy here has confirmed that an energy project in Sri Lanka's northern province has been suspended.

"Sino Soar Hybrid Technology, being suspended to build hybrid energy system in 3 northern islands due to security concerns from a third party, the embassy tweeted.

China has instead inked a contract with Maldives to establish 12 solar power plants at 12 Maldivian islands, it said.

COLOMBO, Nov. 24 (Xinhua) -- The Sri Lankan police on Wednesday arrested three people over the ferry tragedy which killed six people, including 4 children, and seriously injured 14 others a day earlier.

According to a police official, the owner of the ferry and two ferry operators were taken into custody a day after the ferry, carrying 22 people including school students, capsized when crossing a waterway in east Sri Lanka's town of Kinniya.