Sri Lanka tourist arrivals up 12-pct to June 18

Monday June 23, 2025 12:00 pm

ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka’s tourist arrivals from June 1-18 increased 12 percent from a 66,522 a year ago to 74,570, with visitors from India forming the largest contingent, data from the island’s tourism promotion office showed.

There were 22,000 visitors from India, followed by 6,158 from the UK, and 4,789 from China.

There were 4,515 visitors from Bangladesh.

Total visitors so far this year are 1,104,373. (Colombo/Jun23/2025)

Monday June 23, 2025 12:19 pm

ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka’s government has issued a statement on the Israel-Iran war calling on “all parties to take concrete steps to de-escalate the situation in the Middle East region”.

“Sri Lanka is gravely concerned about the latest developments in the Middle East,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Employment and Tourism said.

“We continue to call upon all parties to take concrete steps to de-escalate the situation.

“All concerned parties should return to dialogue and engage in intense diplomatic efforts to establish and maintain peace with a view to ensuring stability in the Middle East region.”

The boilerplate text message used vague terms and did not name any of the countries involved.

A previous statement by the foreign ministry on the unprovoked attack by Israel on Iran, drew criticism from an opposition legislator, who slammed it as “A very unprincipled, unwise, and unimaginative statement”.

“Rather than issuing this statement it is better if they had issued no statement at all,” Rauff Hakeem told parliament.

“They don’t denounce the attack, they don’t name the attacker, they don’t even mention the principles of the UN Charter, international law, the principles of non-alignment.”

Read more
Sri Lanka foreign ministry trying to please western world: legislator

“Our foreign ministry doesn’t have the backbone to name the perpetrators.” (Colombo/Jun23/2025)

Monday June 23, 2025 11:31 am

ECONOMYNEXT- The price of Murban crude, the preferred oil used in Sri Lanka’s refinery has moved above Brent crude in recent days as Israel attacks on Iran continued with the US also joining the battle.

Murban crude was quoted around 78.49 US dollars a barrel, higher than the Brent price of 77.85 dollars on Monday.

Sri Lanka’s refinery needs light crudes to produce adequate amounts of diesel and petrol.

The refinery was built to refine Iranian light but after US sanctions Sri Lanka had to find alternative crudes to feed the refinery. (Colombo/June23/2025)

Monday June 23, 2025 10:30 am

ECONOMYNEXT – State-run SriLankan Airlines lost 8.4 billion rupees in the 2024/25 financial year, against a profit of 3.7 billion rupees a year ago, with lower revenues and some costs coming down, official data show.

The 8.4 billion loss came despite a 4.09 billion rupee exchange gain. However, in 2023/24 year the 3.8 billion rupee profit came with a 26.6 billion rupee exchange gain, indicating that the loss before the exchange gain was greater in the previous year.

SriLankan has large dollar debts, and its value fluctuates wildly along with currency movements.

A large part of its losses in the past five years came as macroeconomists depreciated the currency, after cutting rates with printed money.

In 2022/23 107 billion rupees out of a loss of 165.8 billion rupees came from an exchange loss, which is a consequence of macroeconomic policy and rate cuts.

The 26 billion rupee exchange gain in the following year, came as the central bank restored monetary stability, removed a surrender rule and allowed the rupee to appreciate.

State enterprise, and also government budgets go haywire with the national currency being weakened by macroeconomic policy.

In the year to March 2025, revenues fell to 299.1 billion rupees from 335.8 billion rupees with passenger revenues falling but cargo revenues being flat.

Fuel costs fell to 91 billion rupees from 115.1 billion rupees.

Employee costs were also flat at 30.9 billion rupees against 29.8 billion rupees.

Airport and aeronautical costs were down at 45 billion rupees from 51 billion rupees. It is not clear whether this was due to currency appreciation.

Maintenance and overhaul costs were also down to 45 billion rupees from 51.9 billion rupees.

With the loss of 8.4 billion rupees, accumulated losses went up to 615 billion rupees, compared to equity of 213.2 billion rupees, indicating a serious loss of capital.

Taxpayers injected 9.8 billion rupees in SriLankan. Another 20 billion rupees in taxpayer funds were allocated in the current government budget to keep it afloat. (Colombo/June23/2025)