Category: Business
NPC CM Calls for institutionalised commercial ventures of the Tamil Diaspora
Chief Minister of Northern Province C.V. Wigneswaran yesterday called upon the Tamil people living all over the world to be institutionalised in their commercial ventures to win over the Tamil...
Govt purchased paddy from 3027 agriculturalists
Paddy Marketing Board of the Northern Region has stated that it had purchased paddy from 3027 paddy producers in the region last year. The purchases were made from five districts of Killinochi,...
Rs.435 Million allocated for ” One Development Project to one village” scheme in Peninsula
The District Secretary, Jaffna, N.Vethanayagan said yesterday the Rs. 435 Million had been allocated to the peninsula under the second phase of the “ One Development Project to one...
“London Tamil Market 2016”: Arrangements to conduct on a grand scale
Arrangements have been made to conduct the “London Tamil Market 2016”, which was inaugurated last year and was a resounding success, this year too, on a much grander scale. As in last year...
Sri Lanka’s economy slows to 4.8% in 2015 as tea party ends
Sri Lanka’s economic growth slowed slightly to 4.8 per cent last year due to a fall in exports of its main commodity, tea, official figures showed on Tuesday. The figure marked only a marginal...
India approves $700 million forex swap with Sri Lanka until IMF loan relief
India has approved a $700 million currency swap of dollars for Sri Lankan rupees until the island nation receives an International Monetary Fund loan, the Indian government said on Friday. Sri Lanka...
Sri Lanka to get $1.5 billion IMF loan to avert balance of payments woes
Sri Lanka will receive a loan of $1.5 billion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to boost foreign exchange reserves and avert a balance of payments problem, a government minister said on...
Japan’s economy shrinks less than first thought
Japan’s economy shrank less than previously thought in the last three months of 2015, surprising analysts. Gross domestic product contracted at an annualised rate of 1.1% for the...
Australia’s shares boosted by commodity stocks
Shares in Australia led markets on Monday morning, up more than 1% in early trade, boosted by commodity and energy-related stocks. Investor sentiment was also up after a positive US jobs report on...
Email inventor Ray Tomlinson dies at 74
Internet pioneer Ray Tomlinson, who is credited with the invention of email, has died at the age of 74. The US computer programmer came up with the idea of electronic messages that could be sent...
US creates 242,000 jobs in February
The US economy added 242,000 jobs in February, far better than the 190,000 expected by economists. The Labor Department numbers underlined the strength of the US economy and may allow the Federal...
Facebook to pay millions of pounds more in UK tax
Facebook is set to pay millions of pounds more in tax in the UK after a major overhaul of its tax structure. After heavy criticism that it was avoiding tax, the BBC can reveal that profits from the...
China growth target set at National People’s Congress
China’s National People’s Congress has set the country’s growth target for 2016 in a range of 6.5%-7%. Premier Li Keqiang will announce the target in his address to delegates,...
Nestle opens Milk Chilling Centre in Vatatkachi
A milk chilling centre was declared open in Vattakachchi under the patronage of the Nestles recently. Managing Director of Nestles Shivani Hegde, Assistant Government Agent S.Sathyaseelann and other...
Dow DuPont heads will get $80m golden parachute
The heads of Dow and DuPont will get a combined $80m (£56.5m) in “golden parachute” leaving bonuses following the tie up of the two companies. Dow and DuPont announced plans for a...
Apple backed by online giants in FBI iPhone unlock battle
witter, AirBnB, Ebay, LinkedIn and Reddit are among 17 major online companies to have formally backed Apple in its court dispute with the FBI over the San Bernardino terror attack. The FBI has...
Moody’s cuts China outlook to negative
US ratings agency Moody’s has cut its outlook for China from “stable” to “negative”. While reaffirming its current debt rating, the agency warned that reforms were...
Rupee forwards decline; more fall seen on Fitch downgrade
Sri Lankan rupee forwards ended slightly weaker on Tuesday on importer dollar demand, while dealers expected the currency to remain under pressure due to seasonal importer demand and after a...
China court ‘jails 24 people over $1.5bn financial scam’
A court in China has sentenced 24 people to jail for raising more than 9.9bn yuan ($1.5bn; £1.07bn) through a scam, according to state media. The scam saw hundreds of thousands of elderly people...
Fitch downgrades Sri Lanka’s credit rating in fresh blow
Fitch Ratings today cut Sri Lanka’s credit rating by one notch to B+ with a negative outlook, weeks after it asked for a bailout from the International Monetary Fund, the AFP reported . The...
VW sued by US justice department
The US justice department is suing Volkswagen over the emissions scandal that saw the German car giant fit software in millions of cars to cheat emissions tests. In September last year, following an...
Google self-driving car hits a bus
One of Google’s self-driving cars crashed into a bus in California last month. There were no injuries. It is not the first time one of Google’s famed self-driving cars has been involved...
US raises growth estimate for the last quarter of 2015
The US economy grew at a faster pace than previously thought in the fourth quarter of 2015, according to the latest official figures. The US economy grew at an annualised pace of 1% in the quarter,...
‘New crisis without reform’ warns ex-Bank of England boss
The former Bank of England boss has warned in a new book that another financial crisis is “certain”, and may come “sooner rather than later”. Mervyn King, who stood down in...
Hacker breached accounts of 700,000 US taxpayer
The US tax authorities (IRS) said on Friday that the personal information of a further 390,000 individuals may have been accessed by cyber criminals. In May, the IRS said it discovered the data of...
China seeks to assure G20 over its economy
China has sought to assure global finance ministers about the state of its slowing economy, as the G20 meeting gets under way in Shanghai. Chinese finance minister Lou Jiwei said the country could...
Australia’s Woolworths sees 33% fall in profits
Australia’s biggest supermarket chain Woolworths has posted a 33.1% fall in profits for the six months to December. The firm, which has interests spanning hotels, petrol and discount liquor,...
IMF warns the global economy is “highly vulnerable”
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said the global economy has weakened further and warned it was “highly vulnerable to adverse shocks”. It said the weakening had come “amid...
Apple boss Tim Cook hits back at FBI investigation
Apple boss Tim Cook has hit back at the FBI over the handling of a court order to help unlock the iPhone of San Bernardino killer Syed Rizwan Farook. Mr Cook told ABC his company first learned of...
Aston Martin creates 750 jobs in St Athan
Aston Martin is to build its new luxury car in south Wales, creating 750 highly-skilled jobs. The DBX Concept car will be hand-made in the super hangar at St Athan in the Vale of Glamorgan. It is a...
BHP Billiton sinks to $5.67bn loss
Mining giant BHP Billiton has posted a huge half-year net loss of $5.67bn (£4bn) and warned that weak commodity prices will continue. The figure for the six months to December compared with a...
Zuckerberg is ‘sympathetic’ to Apple in its clash with FBI
Facebook’s chief executive has said he is sympathetic to Apple’s position in its clash with the FBI. The FBI has ordered Apple to disable the security software on a dead murderer’s...
MWC 2016, Samsung Galaxy S7 restores expandable storage
Samsung’s latest flagship phones restore a couple of popular features dropped from the previous generation. The Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge both accept MicroSD cards, allowing their storage...
MWC 2016, LG G5 smartphone has modules to add functions
LG has announced a modular Android smartphone that can gain extra functions via add-on parts. Components are plugged in by pulling off the base of the G5 phone and swapping it for an alternative...
Apple apologises for iPhone ‘error 53’ and issues fix
Apple has said sorry to iPhone customers whose phones were disabled after third-party repairs, and issued a fix for the problem. Some users found that their iPhone stopped working following...
Bangkok airport safety issues ‘must be addressed’
The airline industry has called on the Thai government to address problems at the country’s main airport in Bangkok. The International Air Transport Association (Iata) says Suvarnabhumi...
Japan’s exports fall for fourth consecutive month
Japan’s latest trade figures have shown exports falling for a fourth straight month, according to official numbers. The country’s value of exports fell by 12.9% in January from a year...
HSBC to keep headquarters in London
UK banking giant HSBC has announced it is to keep its headquarters in London. Concerns about stricter UK regulations led Europe’s biggest bank to launch a review into whether to move...
China bank chief says ‘speculators’ caused yuan fall
Chinese central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan has accused “speculative forces” of targeting the country’s currency, the yuan. He said there was no reason for the yuan to keep...
Japan’s economy contracts in fourth quarter
Japan’s economy contracted in the final three months of 2015, adding to a string of setbacks for the government’s economic reform policy. Between October and December, it shrank by 0.4%...
Oil prices soar on hopes of Opec production cut
Oil prices surged as much as 12% on Friday after new suggestions that Opec nations were set to cut oil production. The United Arab Emirates’ energy minister said that Opec members were ready to...
Steel imports from China investigated by European Commission
The European Commission is opening three investigations into steel products made in China as cheap imports add to the woes of the UK industry. It said it would not allow “unfair...
Eurozone economy grows 1.5% in 2015
The economies of the 19 countries that use the euro expanded by 1.5% in 2015. In the last three months of the year, they grew 0.3%, compared with the previous three months, according to the...
Google’s UK chief has defended the search giant’s tax arrangements
Google’s UK chief has defended the search giant’s tax arrangements in a hearing before MPs on the Commons Public Accounts Committee. Matt Brittin said he understood public anger about the...
Japanese shares plunge amid global economic worries
apan’s markets were trading sharply lower on Friday amid concerns over the global economy and following steep falls in Europe and the US. The benchmark Nikkei 225 opened down more than 3.5%...
Japan stocks tumble into bear market territory
Japanese shares have continued their slide, falling almost 7% in two days and entering bear market territory. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 dropped sharply by another 2.3% to close at 15,713.39, adding...
Train ticket sales jump 3.8% to 1.7 billion in 2015
The number of train tickets sold last year rose 3.8%, according to the Rail Delivery Group (RDG). The organisation that represents train operators and Network Rail said there were 1.7 billion...
Fiat Chrysler shares fall as safety investigation widens
Shares of Fiat Chrysler fell more than 7% on Monday as an investigation into its vehicles widened. The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) doubled its investigation to cover...
China’s currency reserves plunged in January
China’s foreign currency reserves plunged by $99.5bn in January, the People’s Bank of China reported. China has been running down its vast foreign currency reserves in an attempt to...
Japan’s markets lower after disappointing US job numbers
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 opened lower on Monday, following falls on Friday in the US after disappointing labour market numbers. The benchmark index was down 1.36% at 16,602.06 in mid-morning...
