The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Friday said it was encouraged by Sri Lanka’s monetary and exchange rate policy changes amid a sharp drop in foreign exchange reserves and significant widening of the current account deficit.

"There was broad agreement that a decisive policy response was needed to put the economy on a sounder macroeconomic footing, especially given the current uncertain global environment," Brian Aitken, head of the IMF review team, said in a statement at the conclusion of a review [...]

Sri Lanka’s share market fell more than 1 percent on Thursday, erasing 28 billion rupees ($245.83 million) of value, a day ahead of the central bank’s monetary policy announcement and expected International Monetary Fund comments on the economy.

Retail investors, meanwhile, booked profits to settle debts after the regulator suspended trading of warrants in Environmental Resources Investment PLC, which fell 70.91 percent to 1.60 rupees.

The main share index ended 1.35 percent or 76.84 points weaker at 5,605.49, lowest since Jan. 26.

"With [...]

President Mahinda Rajapaksa was emphatic: China’s presence in Sri Lanka is strictly business, and not political.

Challenged on speculation that China financed and built the $1.4 billion Mahinda Rajapaksa port on Sri Lanka’s south coast so it could sneak a naval base into India’s backyard, Rajapaksa laughed and said his giant neighbour had not complained.

"No one has said anything to us, not India, not even the U.S. Even the U.S., the British and India are now inviting China to come and [...]

India’s foreign minister on Tuesday urged Sri Lanka to forge ahead with political reconciliation steps recommended by a presidential inquiry into the end of its civil war, and signed economic cooperation agreements worth $443 million.

External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna, on a three-day visit to India’s island neighbour, said the presidentially-appointed Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) had several points which needed follow-up to spur recovery from the 25-year ethnic civil war that ended in 2009.

"These recommendations, when implemented, would mark [...]

Sri Lanka may be a minnow in the oil world, but a near total reliance on Iranian crude imports means it has more reason than most to find a way to avoid being caught in the clutches of U.S. sanctions.

The island’s only refinery — the 50,000 barrels-a-day Sapugaskanda refinery — is almost entirely reliant on imports of Iran’s crude. Switching to alternatives is not easy because the refinery has been configured to handle Iran’s high-sulphur and high-density crude oil.

"We don’t [...]

South Africa’s Sun City resort will invest $800 million in a tourism project in Sri Lanka, the head of the island nation’s state-run Tourism Board said on Friday.

Sun City resort is run by South African gaming and hotels group Sun International Ltd.

It will be the largest ever investment in the country’s leisure sector, which is booming since the end of a 25-year war in May 2009.

"Sun City of South Africa is now going to make an $800 million investment in [...]

Sri Lanka on Friday made public a report by the presidentially-appointed Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), providing a set of recommendations and findings on the end of the island nation’s three-decade civil war.

The nearly 400-page report is Sri Lanka’s answer to a U.N.-appointed panel’s finding of "credible allegations" that both the military and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) separatists may have committed war crimes in the war’s final months. The war ended in May 2009.

Following are some [...]

Sri Lanka’s tourist arrivals in the first 10 months of the year has surpassed 2010′s record as visitors to the island nation has continued to rise every month on a year-on-year basis since a 25-year civil war ended in May 2009.

Tourist arrivals in the first ten months of 2011 jumped 34.2 percent to 667,569 from a year earlier, higher than Sri Lanka’s record annual tourist arrivals of 654,476 reached last year.

The arrivals rose 32.8 percent in October from a [...]

Sri Lanka’s parliament passed controversial legislation on Wednesday that will allow the government to acquire enterprises or assets it deems underperforming or underutilised, despite concerns the bill could hit investment in the country.

The new law, passed by 122 votes to 46, will pave the way for the state to acquire 37 properties including from two listed companies it has said are underperforming.

Leases on the assets, mainly land, were given away or sold at a discount years ago either as an [...]

Australia joined Canada on Tuesday calling for Sri Lanka to address allegations of human rights abuses during its war against Tamil Tiger separatists, adding pressure on President Mahinda Rajapaksa ahead of a Commonwealth leaders summit.

A Sri Lankan-born Australian has also filed court papers seeking war crime charges against Rajapaksa, who is due to arrive in Perth for the summit on Tuesday, and Australia police are separately examining whether Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner to Australia, a former naval admiral, has [...]

Just weeks before fallen hedge fund tycoon Raj Rajaratnam was sentenced to 11 years in prison for insider trading, U.S. prosecutors pressed him to turn on his friend, former Goldman Sachs Group Inc director Rajat Gupta, Newsweek Daily Beast reported.

In his first interview about his case, Rajaratnam was quoted as saying that he was initially asked on the day of his October 16, 2009 arrest to "wear a wire" and record conversations with Gupta, also a longtime global head of [...]

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s party swept local government polls, results on Sunday showed, but lost the minority-dominated capital while four people died in violence that exposed a growing rift in his huge political coalition.

Rajapaksa’s United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) won 21 of 23 local councils up for vote in a poll which ran smoothly except for a deadly gunfight between the president’s labour adviser, a longtime backer, and a legislator who is a recent ally.

The main opposition [...]

Sri Lanka wants to hire hangmen, a top government official said yesterday, after the country’s only two executioners quit their jobs, leaving at least 800 convicts sitting on death row.

The death penalty has not been used in Sri Lanka, a predominantly Buddhist country, since 1976, though the government reinstated it in 2004 for rape, drug trafficking and murder.

“There are two vacancies for the hangman position after one person who held the position got a promotion, and the other [...]

The Commonwealth must act decisively to uphold human rights among its 54 member nations or risk a slide into irrelevance, according to a report set to divide the group’s leaders at their summit this month.

A confidential experts’ report to Commonwealth heads of government, obtained by Reuters, called for wide-ranging reforms that it said are essential if the organization is to make a real difference to improving the lives of its people.

"As it is currently perceived, the Commonwealth is in danger [...]

Sri Lanka came under mounting pressure from the United Nations and Western powers on Monday to ensure that perpetrators of atrocities committed in its long conflict that ended in 2009 are held to account.

But Sri Lanka’s delegation staunchly defended the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa saying it was working hard on national reconciliation and awaited a report by a national commission of inquiry on the war, due on November 15.

"It is critical to wait for that body to finish [...]