Sri Lankan stocks extend losses, hit 14-month low

Reuters: Sri Lankan shares fell for an eighth consecutive session on Monday to their lowest close in more than a year, as foreign investors sold shares, with block deals boosting the day’s turnover.

The Colombo stock index ended 0.33 percent weaker at 6,310.51, its lowest close since April 11, 2017. The index dropped 0.4 percent last week, marking its fourth straight weekly fall.

Foreign investors sold equities net worth 98.8 million rupees ($618,000), extending the year-to-date net foreign outflows to 872.4 million rupees of shares.

Turnover stood at 1.3 billion rupees, more than this year’s daily average of 961.3 million rupees.

Shares of biggest listed lender Commercial Bank of Ceylon Plc fell 0.9 percent, while Hatton National Bank Plc ended 0.5 percent lower and conglomerate John Keells Holdings Plc ended 0.6 percent weaker.

Most investors have adopted a wait-and-watch approach, hoping for some positive news on the economic front, analysts said.

Sri Lanka’s economy grew 3.2 percent year-on-year in the first quarter, slowing from 3.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2017, the state-run Department of Census and Statistics said after the market closed.

A weaker rupee, political uncertainty and the recent fuel price hike has weighed on sentiment over the past few weeks, with local investors remaining on the sidelines as they gauge the impact of floods last month, brokers said.

($1 = 159.8000 Sri Lankan rupees) 

(Reporting by Ranga Sirilal and Shihar Aneez; Editing by Amrutha Gayathri)

United Motors invests Rs 100 mn on JCB facility in Peliyagoda

United Motors Lanka (UML) has invested Rs 100 million in the first phase of the state of the art machinery and service facility in a 1.5 acre land in Peliyagoda.

This is to promote the world famous brand JCB. At the launch UML Group CEO and Executive Director, Chanaka Yatawara said that construction is an exciting and growing industry in Sri Lanka and UML wanted to explore the opportunities and invested there by collaborating with the JCB, heavy equipment brand.

Yatawara said that almost 9 per cent of the GDP had come from the construction sector last year and Rs 200 billion has been added to the GDP by the construction sector in 2017. Some 700,000 persons were employed directly and otherwise in construction related employment which is about 8 percent of the working population in the country, he said.

Yatawara noted that over 1,200 machines used for constriction are imported every year and the market has grown 30 percent from 2016 to 2017. There could be a large market for material handling application and there is a big opportunity to be a player in the excavator space,” he pointed out.

Sale of JCB product range, mechanical repairs, painting, welding, servicing and maintenance will be done at the new facility in Peliyagoda. UML will also use ‘JCB Livelink’, a technology developed by JCB to monitor the performance of all its machinery. The technology will identify and alert JCB users of issues or a decrease in efficiency of the machine and will provide details for servicing and product support.

A highly skilled team of UML technicians to facilitate the JCB Livelink technology has been deployed by UML, he added.
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