Saturday 5 December 2015

SOEs to be listed next year

By Ishara Gamage

Ceylon Finance Today: Government is planning to list a few large state-owned enterprises (SOEs) on the Colombo bourse by early next year Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said.

Speaking at a ceremony to mark the Colombo Stock Exchange's (CSE's) 30th anniversary celebrations which was held at the CSE premises yesterday, he further said that Sri Lanka may have to bring a Contingencies Liability bill to parliament sometime next year to fulfil additional government funding/loan repayment requirements.

"We don't know how much of debt has been left behind us by our predecessors, Parliament has to make recommendations or Parliament must decide how additional revenues are to be raised to pay those expenditures," he said.


He said that building an efficient and transparent stock market is the government biggest dream.


"What we all need is expansion of listed company shareholdings and to attract more and more middle class people to the CSE. In doing so, we need an efficient and transparent stock market. Building integrity is most impotent," he said.

Wickremesinghe was hopeful that the country would be able to overcome several negative external outcomes due to the global economic turmoil.

"We have to expect declining commodity prices that have an impact on the Sri Lankan economy and there will be reduced flows to emerging capital markets. We have got to remind ourselves that there will be pressure on our currencies and there will be increased financial market volatility as far as we are concerned. There is going to be slow e growth in the emerging markets and increasing risk," he said.

Speaking about the controversial Port City project, Wickremesinghe said, "Hopefully if the Port City projects gets underway – there will be some sort of landfill there – that could have the makings of a special financial and business district which will be a unique one in South Asia".

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority Chairman Paddy Vitharana speaking at an event earlier in the week said that the stalled Colombo City Port project will get off the ground next year.
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