Wednesday November 19, 2025 11:33 am
Wednesday November 19, 2025 11:33 am
ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka will call tenders to build three pipelines from Colombo Port to an oil terminal in Kolonnawa, a suburb of the capital Colombo, according to a cabinet decision.
Two pipelines with a diameter of 18 inches and 14 inches with facilities for internal inspection by machinery should be supplied by the Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Commissioning (EPCC) contractor.
The pipelines will run from the Dolphin Jetty of the Colombo Port to Kolonnawa.
Another undersea 12-inch diameter pipeline section will also be built from the Dolphin Jetty to the Seram Gate.
The new pipelines will replace some of the 5 existing pipelines which are subject to frequent leaks, the statement said. (Colombo/Nov19/2025)
Wednesday November 19, 2025 12:45 pm
Wednesday November 19, 2025 12:45 pm
ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka’s Senkadagala Finance is looking to raise 1.035 billion rupees through a rights issue of shares at 240 rupees each to expand its loan book.
It said in a stock exchange filing that it will issue 4,313,992 ordinary voting shares at a ratio of new ordinary share for every 20 existing ordinary shares.
“While strengthening the Company’s capital base to support projected business growth, maintaining prudent levels of capital adequacy, and reinforcing stakeholder confidence in line with its medium-term strategic objectives, the funds raised will be utilised to expand the Company’s loan book in accordance with the projected growth plans,” the statement said.
The issue is subject to regulatory and shareholder approvals.
(Colombo/Nov19/2025)
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Wednesday November 19, 2025 10:00 am
Wednesday November 19, 2025 10:00 am
ECONOMYNEXT – Foreign investors sold 3.07 million US dollars worth Sri Lanka government securities in the week ending November 13, with foreign holding in government securities falling from a two year high, Central Bank data showed, amid depreciation pressure on the rupee.
Foreigners sold rupee bonds for the second week in the last 12. They sold 920 million rupees (USD 3.07 million at 1$=300 rupees) in the week.
The selling comes amid gradual fall in the rupees in the recent past amid higher imports from strong private credit growth and central bank dollar purchase to boost foreign exchange reserves.
The foreign holdings were steady in the previous week after offshore investors bought a net 10,359 million rupee (34.5 million US dollars) worth of government securities in the week ended on October 30.
Foreign holdings in Sri Lanka’s treasury bonds were at 140.4 billion rupees (USD 468 million at 1$=300 rupees) as of November 13, falling from its highest since November 9, 2023, the latest Central Bank data showed.
The island nation witnessed inflows to a net 33,822 million rupees (112.7 million dollars) in the last 12 weeks.
Sri Lanka suffered an outflow of 10.1 billion rupees ($32 million) in the two weeks soon after Donald Trump’s tariff declaration in the first week of April and the rupee has fallen slightly since then.
The island nation has enjoyed a total inflow of around 71.2 billion rupees (around $2237.3 million) into rupee bonds since December 26 last year through November 13, the data showed.
Sri Lanka’s deflationary policies have helped to see inflows amid curtailed imports, analysts have said.
The country witnessed foreign outflows worth 48.2 billion rupees in 2024 with 66 percent or 78.1 billion rupees worth outflow from the government securities in the first nine months of last year. (Colombo/November 19/2025)
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Wednesday November 19, 2025 9:30 am
Wednesday November 19, 2025 9:30 am
ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka’s rupee opened at 308.20/40 to the US dollar in the spot market Wednesday, stronger from 308.25/75 the previous day, dealers said, while bond yields were broadly steady.
Sri Lanka rupee has depreciated steeply over 2025, despite record current account surpluses, which macro-economists usually blame for currency trouble.
Sri Lanka’s central bank has also injected liquidity via dollar buy-sell swaps over 2025, but not returned dollars to private parties after the liquidity turned into domestic credit and imports.
The rupee fell as budget deficits also contracted dramatically. Sri Lanka’s central bank had blamed budget deficits for external trouble from 1952 after suppressing rates with liquidity injections.
Analysts had blamed dollar purchases by the central bank and unsterilized excess liquidity and the refusal to return dollars to importers after private credit drove up imports under a so-called flexible exchange rate.
The ‘flexible exchange rate’ along with ‘flexible inflation targeting’ gives excessive discretion to central banks with an inflation bias.
The flexible exchange is based on a rejection of classical economic principles analysts have warned and can depreciate through excessive dollar purchases by the central bank even if control of the peg is retained through some deflationary policy.
RELATED : What is wrong with Sri Lanka’s flexible exchange rate
Under flexible or discretionary policy, the most dangerous time for monetary stability in the country had been an economic recovery and accelerating private credit.
Until the IMF’s Second Amendment central banks – including in Sri Lanka – were generally barred from depreciating.
Sri Lanka’s central bank has missed its 5 percent inflation target with largely deflationary policy (except for buy-sell dollars swaps) but it can push up prices of energy and food commodities by depreciating the currency and put pressure on companies, family finances and state enterprises.
Of the actively quoted bonds, a bond maturing on 15.09.2029 was quoted at 9.45/47 percent.
A bond maturing on 01.07.2030 was quoted flat at 9.57/60 percent.
A bond maturing on 15.12.2032 was quoted at 10.25/29 percent, up from 10.22/28 percent.
An auction of 86,000 million rupees Treasury bills was going on.
The telegraphic transfer rates for the American dollar was 304.5000 buying, 311.5000 selling; the British pound was 398.8116 buying, and 410.1734 selling, and the euro was 350.2443 buying, 361.6075 selling.
The Colombo Stock Exchange was trading in green; The ASPI was up 0.23 percent, or 53.16 points, at 23,104; the S&P SL20 was down 0.20 percent, or 12.78 points, at 6,389. (Colombo/Nov19/2025)
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Wednesday November 19, 2025 7:35 am
Wednesday November 19, 2025 7:35 am
ECONOMYNEXT – State-run National Water Supply and Drainage Board had recorded higher profits in the first half of 2025, after electricity tariffs were cut by the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka which triggered losses in the Ceylon Electricity Board.
Revenue for the first six months was 41.5 billion rupees up to June 2025, down from 42.5 billion rupees, a Finance Ministry report said.
However, the cost of sales during this period has declined significantly by 20 percent to 15 billion rules mainly due to the reduction in the pumping cost associated with the reduction in the electricity tariff in January 2025,” the report said.
“As a result, the Board recorded a gross profit of 26.5 billion rupees for the period under review against 24 billion rupees for the same period in 2024.”
The Ceylon Electricity Board on the other hand had reported a gross loss of 11.2 billion rupees after the Public Utilities Commission ordered a tariff cut, despite generation costs coming down due to favourable weather, the report said.
CEB’s had recorded a net loss of 13.2 billion rupees in the period, down from a profit of 119.2 billion rupees, which included a capital gain of 26 billion rupees from the sale of Lanka Transformer shares.
Meanwhile at the NWSDB financing costs were down 41 percent to 3.6 billion rupees in the first half of 2025, allowing net profits to rise to 17.7 billion rupees, up 28 percent from a year earlier.
As a result NWSDB had recorded an operating profit of 20.6 billion during the first six months of 2025 up from 19.1 billion rupees in the same period of 2024.
The NSWDB added 100,000 new connections to the system in 2025.
The Treasury had injected 23.5 billion rupees of equity to help NSWDB repay local banks and support ongoing water projects in Thambuttegama, Gampaha, Attanagalla, Minuwangoda, Aluthgama, Mathugama, Agalawatte, Polgahawela, Alawwa and Pothuhara. (Colombo/Nov19/2025)
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Wednesday November 19, 2025 7:34 am
Wednesday November 19, 2025 7:34 am
ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka has wrapped up the restructure of bilateral debt of 39 million US dollars from Denmark, a Finance Ministry statement said.
“Following bilateral discussions after the conclusion of the MoU with the Official Creditor Committee (OCC), the Government of Denmark has agreed to extend a debt relief measure by rescheduling the outstanding debts, the statement said.
“Entering into the Agreement will certainly pave the way to developing further the deep and longstanding bilateral relationships between the Government of Denmark and the Government of Sri Lanka.
“The Government of Sri Lanka extends its sincere appreciation to the Government of Denmark for its continued support and cooperation.”
The Bilateral Agreement was signed by Harshana Suriyapperuma, Secretary of the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, and Lars Løkke Rasmussen, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Denmark. (Colombo/Nov19/2025)
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Tuesday November 18, 2025 6:20 pm
Tuesday November 18, 2025 6:20 pm
ECONOMYNEXT – Internet sites including X.com is experiencing outages, report said, with automatic messages pointing to a cloudflare error.
Cloudflare provides services including caching to speed up websites and security.
EconomyNext is also experiencing intermittent outages, pointing to error code 500 (a server side error) linked to cloudflare.
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