Sri Lanka needs to regain lost status

Dr. Nalaka Godahewa

Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Sri Lanka (SEC) Dr. Nalaka Godahewa last week highlighted on the need for Sri Lanka to regain the lost ‘MSCI emerging market status’ if the country is to attract large scale foreign funds. Outlining that increasing market liquidity would be a critical requirement to support growth, the Chairman noted that out of the 288 listed companies the island currently had, 140 or almost 50% did not have a public float of even 25% whilst at the same time some of the largest listed companies also had very little public float.
 

Access Engineering to explore overseas options

The management of Access Engineering PLC (AEL), one of Sri Lanka’s leading construction companies says they are keen on expanding operations beyond the shores of Sri Lanka though Sri Lanka will remain its nucleus.
“The steppingstone in this expansion strategy was laid when we secured our first overseas project in Papua New Guinea for Environment Monitoring in the Port Lae Development Project. At present, the Company is also seeking business opportunities in the African Continent and we are confident that the strong relationships we have with our international business partners will help us achieve our ambitions,” AEL Managing Director, Christopher Joshua and AEL Executive Director/ COO, Rohana Fernando said in a joint message issued at the release of the firm’s Annual Report 2012/13.

Common ATMs, a win-win for all stakeholders

The launch of a Common Automated Teller Machines (ATM) Switch between all the commercial banks in Sri Lanka will encompass an advantage to all banks irrespective of their size whilst offering the much needed convenience to customers, an industry expert says. As the first step towards fulfilling this objective, the national payment infrastructure provider LankaClear, last week launched the first phase of the Common Card and Payment Switch (CCAPS), under the brand name LankaPay – Common ATM Switch (LankaPay – CAS) between Sri Lanka’s two large state-owned commercial banks, Bank of Ceylon and People’s Bank.

The Nation’s Azhar wins Business Journalist of the Year

Deputy Business Editor of The Nation Azhar Razak bagged the Business and Finance Journalist of the Year 2012 Award at the annual Journalism Awards for Excellence 2012 competition jointly organized by The Editors’ Guild of Sri Lanka and the Sri Lanka Press Institute held last week. Here, Azhar (right) displays the coveted award which was earlier presented to him by Senior Journalist and the Editor-in-Chief of the Daily FT in Sri Lanka Nisthar Cassim at the Awards ceremony held at the Empire Ballroom of the Mount Lavinia Hotel. Meanwhile, Roshan Ahangama of our sister publication Rivira won the Merit Award for the Sports Journalist of the Year

“It’s a wild wild market…”

Clamour for credit and indirect pressure exerted to stop investigations have been the main demands of the so called ‘stock market mafia’ existent on the Colombo Bourse, says Tilak Karunaratne, who tendered his resignation as the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday.  Reluctantly stepping down barely nine months after taking over the position, the former Chairman said that he had tried to fast track investigations into market malpractices under his tenure so as to bring sanity to what he described as ‘a wild market where some people were shooting  from the hip’.

In what could be his first interview with The Nation Gain following his resignation, Karunaratne explains the sequence of events that led him to call it a day and his expressions showed that his main disappointment was that he could not effectively take some of those real perpetrators of the Colombo’s Stock Market to task.

Moving car imports from Colombo Port to Hambantota Port

Importers claim the move a Trojan Horse 

By Azhar Razak
The Ceylon Motor Traders Association (CMTA) last week expressed their anger to a plan mooted by the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) Chairman, Dr Priyath Bandu Wickrama to move the clearance facilities of all car imports from Colombo to the Hambantota Harbour claiming that logistically it was not practical. Their stance is that since the majority of buyers are from the Western Province, such a move would only make the vehicles more expensive to the consumer with additional transport costs to be borne among a series of other logistical issues to be addressed in such an implementation.