Sri Lanka Newspapers Tuesday 06/03/2012

Bourse barely lifts head

The Colombo Stock Exchange closed a marginal 0.08 percent higher on Monday (Mar. 05) on thin trading volumes.

The All Share Price Index closed 0.08 percent higher, up 4.62 points to 5,464.81 while the Milanka Price Index of more liquid stocks gained 0.62 percent to 4,774.42, an improvement of 29.23 points.

Year-to-date, the Colombo Bourse was down 10.04 percent. It fell 8.5 percent in 2011. However, the one saving grace continued to be foreign interest in the market, with the net foreign inflow amounting to Rs. 413.68 million.

Volume was thin with a little more than 23.2 million shares changing hands generating a turnover of Rs. 1.03 billion.

Altogether, 121 counters closed in the red, outpacing gainers where only 73 counters closed in positive territory.

"The indices ended marginally higher followed by sharp volatility during the day where activity levels remained moderate and driven by large trades on SPEN (Aitken Spence), SMOT (Sathosa Motors ) and JKH (John Keells Holdings)," John Keells Stock Brokers said.

"The Colombo bourse commenced the week market continuing last Fridays momentum in negative territory. Towards the mid day the bourse managed to gain ground to end the day in positive territory large parcel trading witnessed in SMOT. Further support was given by the aggressive trading witnessed in retail favourite counters as PC House, GREG (Environmental Resources) and CSF (Nation Lanka Finance)," NDB Stock Brokers said.

SPEN closed at Rs. 115 and saw a little more than three million shares change hands during the day, SMOT closed at 235.10 on one million shares and JKH saw 866.7 million shares being traded, closing at Rs. 181.10.

In a stock exchange filing released yesterday, Access Engineering said it bought 507 shares of SMOT at Rs. 235 each subsequent to a mandatory offer made by the company. Access Engineering now has a 59.953 stake in SMOT with the mandatory offer attracting 0.008 percent of the issued shares.
http://island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=46768

CIMB Group Holdings Berhad (CIMB Group) and John Keells Stock Brokers (Pvt) Ltd (JKSB) announced a strategic collaboration to promote and facilitate trading on the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) and provide co-branded research for CIMB’s clientele.

JKSB, a founder member of the CSE and a subsidiary of John Keells Holdings PLC, the largest listed entity on the Colombo Stock Exchange, will be CIMB Group’s trade execution partner in Sri Lanka whilst supporting CIMB in its sales initiatives to generate trade flows to the CSE.

As part of an agreement signed today, JKSB will also supply CIMB Group (ASEAN’s leading universal banking group) with research which will be disseminated to CIMB’s clientele globally under a CIMB/JKSB co-branded banner.

This new relationship expands CIMB’s global reach and widens JKSB’s access to foreign clientele and is expected to result in JKSB and the Sri Lankan market benefiting from increased visibility, particularly in the ASEAN region where CIMB continues to rank as the top player.

"CIMB is newly present in Sri Lanka [since last August] and we were impressed by the level of industrial and financial activity in Sri Lanka and believe in its economic growth potential. ASEAN countries and businesses are already significant trade and investment partners for the country, and as one of ASEAN’s leading financial institutions, we believe CIMB has a role to play," said Madam Kong Sooi Lin, Deputy CEO, CIMB Investment Bank Bhd.

"We believe that this partnership with John Keells Stock Brokers will further facilitate trade and investments for our clients as well as between Sri Lanka and ASEAN," she added.

"This new partnership between JKSB and CIMB has significant potential in attracting new foreign investors especially from the South East Asian region to the post war opportunities that Sri Lanka offers through the Colombo Stock Exchange," said Krishan Balendra, President, John Keells Stock Brokers.
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The Commercial Bank of Ceylon has announced the launch of a new web service in association with Xpress Money to offer a faster and more efficient process of receiving remittances from overseas.

The Bank said it has integrated its systems with those of Xpress Money - a global money transfer brand - to introduce a new dimension in speed, reliability and convenience to recipients of remittances in Sri Lanka.

Remittances made via Xpress Money can now be received instantly by beneficiaries, without incurring deductions of commissions or charges, from any of Commercial Bank’s 213 service points island-wide, some of which offer 365 day banking services.

"We have combined the easy accessibility of Commercial Bank’s service points with state-of-the-art simple, fast and secure systems of Xpress Money, to offer unparalleled convenience to beneficiaries of remittances", said Sanath Bandaranayake, Deputy General Manager – Operations of The Commercial Bank. He added, "This is yet another example of how the Bank delivers enhanced value and services to its customers through strategic collaborations with global players."

Bandaranayake noted that apart from the significant number of 365-day Banking Centers and the 24-hour Banking Centre operated by Commercial Bank in Katunayake, the Bank also maintains dedicated counters for remittances in selected branches for the benefit of beneficiaries.

Commenting on this tie up, Arvind Mylar, Head of Xpress Money’s Business Development for South Asia said: "As a brand, we want to be able to provide the best value to our Sri Lankan customers, whether they are the ones sending the money or receiving it; this tie-up with The Commercial Bank is a step in the same direction. We are committed to innovate with our service offerings so that more people can benefit from them in the future."

This web service eliminates the time lapse between initiating the transaction from the remitter’s end and making money available for withdrawal in Sri Lanka. At the time of sending money, the sender receives a 16 digit Xpress Personal Identification Code (XPIN) which then needs to be shared with the beneficiary in Sri Lanka.

As soon as the XPIN is given to the remitter, the payment can be collected by the beneficiary from any service point of Commercial Bank, the Bank said.

Prior to the integration of systems of the two parties, transactions involving remittances were periodically uploaded to the Commercial Bank system by Xpress Money.

Following the integration of systems, Commercial Bank can extract remittances directly from the Xpress Money system via Web Service which is a secured method of communication over the internet, without any human intervention.

Apart from benefits to beneficiaries, this integration also enables remitters to send money from any of 80,000 authorised locations of Xpress Money across the world on a real time basis.
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Nations Trust Bank PLC has signed up with a number of remittance partners worldwide to offer a fast and convenient remittance service across its expanding branch network.

The bank recently entered into a partnership with Ria Financial Services and an agreement to this effect was signed recently at the bank’s head office in Colombo.

Ria Financial Services was founded in 1987 and is today the third largest money transfer company in the world, with a global agent network of 140,000 locations in 137 countries on 5 continents. In addition to money transfer services, Ria offers Bill Payment, Mobile Top Ups, Prepaid Debit Cards, Check Cashing and Money Orders. Ria has processed US$ 7 Billion worth of money transfers in year 2011. Ria Money Transfer provides its customers an instant, safe and affordable way to transfer money worldwide.

The tie-up will enable Sri Lankans living overseas to remit money to Rupee and foreign currency accounts at Nations Trust Bank or rupee accounts at another bank. Through this service funds could also be collected over the counter at any of one of the 48 Nations Trust Bank branches that are open 365 days offering extended banking hours.

Commenting on the partnership DGM Retail and SME Banking at Nations Trust Bank; Ms. Keshini Jayawardena said "we are proud to sign up with Ria Financial Services who is a global player in the remittance business to offer our customers a convenient and fast remittance service through our banking network. We look forward to a growing partnership with Ria Money Transfer so that we achieve a win win situation for both parties".

Echoing Ms. Jayawardena’s comments Operations Director-South Asia at Ria Financial Services; Sujoy Kanjilal said, "we consider this partnership key to promote remittance services to this part of the globe and we look forward to exploiting Nation Trust Bank’s expanding network to offer residents overseas a fast, affordable and secure money transfer service thorough Ria Money Transfer. Nation Trust Bank’s reputation as a reliable and customer-friendly bank forms the perfect alliance for us."
http://island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=46744

Reuters: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Monday forecast Sri Lanka’s economic growth would cool to less than 7.5% due to its tighter monetary policy and currency depreciation measures, aimed at cutting the trade and current account deficits.

The global lender has withheld the last $800 million left in a $2.6 billion loan program since September, after the central bank refused to adopt a more flexible rupee exchange rate policy.

Sri Lanka spent $2.7 billion in the second half of last year trying to support the rupee. It gave up that policy on Feb 9 and at the same time raised interest rates for the first time since 2007.

“The IMF was estimating the growth at 7.5% for this year. I think it will be something below that with these policy measures,” IMF Resident Representative for Sri Lanka Koshy Mathai, told Reuters in an interview.

Sri Lanka’s economy is estimated to have expanded by a record 8.3% last year compared to 8 percent in 2010 and the central bank has forecast growth to cool down to 8% this year.

“We have seen them taking good policy steps. We think those are right policies to make the economy grow in a sustainable way. We are working towards and hoping we can recommend the release of next tranche,” Mathai said.

“Whether the government takes the money at the end of the day is their decision,” he said.
Fitch and Standard & Poor’s rating agencies last week warned Sri Lanka that its sovereign credit rating was at risk due to a weak external position and the depletion of its foreign currency reserves to protect the rupee.

Along with allowing more than 6 percent depreciation, the Sri Lankan government also raised fuel prices between 9-50% and electricity by as much as 40%, spawning sporadic protests.

A record trade deficit of $9.7 billion that resulted in huge current account and balance-of-payments deficits compelled the central bank to take policy measures to discourage imports.

“The exchange rate depreciation will, at least with a lag, benefit the economy by boosting the export- and import-substituting sectors and helping to create more jobs in those sectors,” Mathai said.

“The challenge will be making sure the policies remain flexible,” to ensure the current account deficit comes down and foreign exchange reserves are maintained, Mathai said.

Despite high credit growth, Mathai said the IMF has still not seen signs of overheating in the economy yet and “would probably not recommend a monetary tightening purely on domestic economic grounds.”
http://www.ft.lk/2012/03/06/lanka-growth-to-dip-below-7-5-imf/