Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is an island country in South Asia, located in the Indian Ocean southwest of the Bay of Bengal and southeast of the Arabian Sea. Sri Lanka has been called “the pearl of the Indian ocean” because of its shape and location. It is geographically separated from the Indian subcontinent by the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait. Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte is its legislative capital, and Colombo is its largest city and centre of commerce.
The free-market economy of Sri Lanka was worth $84 billion by nominal gross domestic product (GDP) in 2019 and $296.959 billion by purchasing power parity (PPP). The country has experienced an annual growth of 6.4 percent from 2003 to 2012, well above its regional peers but has slowed since then. In 2019 with an income per capita of 13,620 PPP Dollars or 3,852 (2019) nominal US dollars, Sri Lanka was re-classified as a lower middle income nation by the World Bank from a previous upper middle income status.
Colombo is the commercial capital and largest city of Sri Lanka by population. According to the Brookings Institution, Colombo metropolitan area has a population of 5.6 million, and 752,993 in the city proper. It is the financial centre of the island and a tourist destination. It is located on the west coast of the island and adjacent to the Greater Colombo area which includes Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, the legislative capital of Sri Lanka and Dehiwala-Mount Lavinia. Colombo is often referred to as the capital since Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte is within the urban area of, and a suburb of, Colombo. It is also the administrative capital of the Western Province and the district capital of Colombo District. Colombo is a busy and vibrant city with a mixture of modern life, colonial buildings and monuments.
The Central Bank bombing was one of the deadliest attacks carried out by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) during the separatist civil war in Sri Lanka between the government and the Tamil Tigers.
The rupee (Sinhala: රුපියල්, is the currency of Sri Lanka, divided into 100 cents. It is issued by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. The abbreviation is generally Rs., but "LKR" is occasionally used to distinguish it from other currencies also called rupee.
Bank of Ceylon is a state-owned, major commercial bank in Sri Lanka. Its head office is located in an iconic cylindrical building in Colombo, the political and commercial capital of the island.
The Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) is the monetary authority of Sri Lanka. It was established in 1950 under the Monetary Law Act No.58 of 1949 (MLA), it is a government owned semi-autonomous body, and following the amendments to the MLA in December 2002, is governed by a five-member Monetary Board, comprising the Governor as chairman, the Secretary to the Ministry of Finance and Planning, and three members appointed by the President of Sri Lanka, on the recommendation of the Minister of Finance, with the concurrence of the Constitutional Council.
Television in Sri Lanka dates back to 1979. Television broadcasting, like other forms of media in the country, is generally divided along linguistic lines with state and private media operators providing services in Sinhala, Tamil, and English languages.
North Western Province is a province of Sri Lanka. The province consists of the districts of Kurunegala and Puttalam. Its capital is Kurunegala, which has a population of 28,571. The province is known mainly for its numerous coconut plantations. Other main towns in this province are Chilaw (24,712) and Puttalam (45,661), which are both small fishing towns. The majority of the population of Wayamba province is of Sinhalese ethnicity. There is also a substantial Sri Lankan Moor minority around Puttalam and Sri Lankan Tamils in Udappu and Munneswaram. Fishing, prawn farming and rubber tree plantations are other prominent industries of the region. The province has an area of 7,888 km², and a population of 2,370,075.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Sri Lanka:
Ajith Nivard Cabraal is a former governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, holding the post from 1 July 2006 until his resignation on 9 January 2015.
The 2011 English cricket season was the 112th in which the County Championship had been an official competition. It began on 2 April with a round of university matches, and continued until the final of the Clydesdale Bank 40 on 17 September. Three major domestic competitions were contested: the 2011 County Championship won by Lancashire, the 2011 Clydesdale Bank 40 won by Surrey and the 2011 Friends Life t20 won by Leicestershire.
The banking sector in Sri Lanka is monitored by the Bank Supervision Department of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka under the Banking Act, Monetary Law Act and the Exchange Control Act.
The Sri Lanka Interbank Payment System, commonly known as SLIPS, is a LKR-only online interbank payment and fund transfer system in Sri Lanka.
HSBC Sri Lanka is a banking and financial services company in Sri Lanka and is a licensed commercial bank supervised by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. It is the largest and one of the oldest bank in Sri Lanka. HSBC opened its doors in Sri Lanka in 1892, just 27 years after its first offices were established in Hong Kong and Shanghai. The company maintained an international outlook from the start, while its activities centered on trade finance.
LankaClear is the largest payments infrastructure provider in Sri Lanka. Established in February 2002, the organization is owned by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) and all CBSL-licensed commercial banks in the country. LankaClear is the operator of LankaPay, the country's largest interbank payment network.
Israel–Sri Lanka relations are official relations between Israel and Sri Lanka.
The COVID-19 pandemic in Sri Lanka is part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. The first case of the virus was confirmed in Sri Lanka on 27 January 2020, after a 44-year-old Chinese woman from Hubei Province in China was admitted to the National Institute of Infection Diseases.
Prof Ranjith BandaraSinhala: මහාචාර්ය රංජිත් බණ්ඩාර born 04 November 1961 is a Sri Lankan politician. He currently serves as a Member of Parliament (MP) of Sri Lanka appointed through the national list of Sri Lanka People's Freedom Alliance. He was a Senior Professor at the Department of Economics, University of Colombo until his recent appointment to the 16th Parliament of Sri Lanka as a Member of Parliament. Bandara was also the Chairman of Sri Lanka Foundation, Merchant Bank of Sri Lanka, CEO of the Strategic Enterprise Management Agency (SEMA) and director financial services cluster and a member of the National Economic Council, Financial System Stability Consultative and the rating committee of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka and as well as the Founder Chairman and the Head of the Colombo School of Business and Management (CSBM). He also served on the Board of Directors and as a consultant of various institutions in both the private and public sectors. He was the Editor of the Sri Lanka Economic journal and the management digest and the International Journal of Entrepreneurship. Bandara earned his Ph.D. from the University of Queensland in 2003.
