President to knock out Conspiracies Ukraine tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka raised by 15.8% President Mahinda Rajapaksa said Sri Lankans will never allow his government to face the fate that doomed all progressive governments in the past. President Rajapaksa said vicious elements destroyed all progressive governments which were in the forefront of bringing benefits to the people by nationalising many ventures such as the oil companies, Colombo Port and schools. Speaking at the Silver Jubilee celebration of the Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation at the Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium, the President said the people of the country will not allow this government to suffer the same fate as all previous progressive governments. President Rajapaksa recalled how his government had to face challenges in nationalising Sri Lanka Insurance in 2009 while SriLankan Airlines and Sevanagala and Pellawatte sugar companies were sold for a song to a handful of businessmen. He said these institutions managed by the government are running profitably. The President told employees of such institutions to show more commitment to run these institutions more profitably. "People will approve our decisions when these institutions are managed profitably," he said. The President said progressive leaders of the country established state institutions such as People's Bank and National Savings Bank with many difficulties for posterity. They also faced innumerable challenges in nationalising many ventures such as the Colombo Port and the oil company, he said. President Rajapaksa said the protection of these institutions is more difficult than selling them to the private sector. The President said former leaders established them with noble objectives though rouges can sell them easily. continued page No. 2 19 th international Travel Market Ukraine 2012 was held from 11 th to 13 th of October at the IEC in Kiev, Ukraine. The Embassy of Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka organized the Sri Lanka stand. The Tourism Promotion Bureau of the Embassy as well as 11 companies: Tangerine Tours, Exotic Global Holidays, Club Bentota Mount/Lavinia Hotel, Maldiviana Holidays, Aitken Spence Travels, Concord Exotic Voyages, Jetwing Travels & Hotels, Walkers Tours, Nkar Travel & Tours, Citrus Leisure, Ceylon Tours were present at the Sri Lanka stand. A famous tea company Randy also took part at the Travel Market. They served refreshing Ceylon tea to all the participants and guests of the exhibition. Ambassador Udayanga Weeratunga also arrived to Kiev especially to welcome the exhibitors of the Sri Lankan stand and to educate the Ukrainian visitors about the wonderful country, Sri Lanka. Moreover the Ambassador gave an interview to journalists and TV companies of Ukraine. Follow the link to watch an interview TV company had with Ambassador Udayanga Weeratunga http://youtu.be/3s1zovfdtms During the first 8 months of 2012, total tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka raised by 15.8%. Almost 623 000 people visited the country. w w w. s r I l a n k a e m b a s s y. o r g 1
Among them, around 10 000 tourists were from Ukraine. It is important to highlight that Ukraine has carried the palm in percentage growth for several months in a row. Tourists flow from this country increased 110. 8% compared with the same period of last year. followed by Hong Kong SAR, New Zealand and the United States. In the South Asian Region, Maldives was ranked 95, Pakistan 107, Nepal 108, Bangladesh 129, India 132, Bhutan 138 and Afghanistan 168. Sri Lanka, Poland, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Burundi, Costa Rica, Mongolia, Greece, Serbia and Kazakhstan were among the 10 economies globally, that registered the biggest improvements in the ease of doing business over last year and among the other countries. Sri Lanka Tea Board opens the re furbished Sales Centre & Secretariat (Continued from page No. 1) Local and international conspirators were in operation to destroy these progressive governments and leaders. He said former Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike faced tremendous challenges when oil companies were nationalised. They faced these challenges for the benefit of the downtrodden, he said. President Rajapaksa said the development of the country is not planned by the government to remain in power. Sri Lanka's Doing Business Ranking gets better Sri Lanka was ranked 81 from 89 in 'Ease of Doing Business,' up eight places from the previous year, according to the 2013 edition of the World Bank's "Doing Business" report which was released by the Washington based World Bank Group and International Finance Corporation (IFC). Sri Lanka made starting a business easier by computerizing and expediting the process of obtaining a registration number for the Employees Provident Fund and Employees Trust Fund, registering property faster by introducing an electronic system at the Land Registry in Colombo. Sri Lanka has also strengthened its secured transactions system by establishing an electronic, searchable collateral registry, issuing regulations for its operation. In addition, Sri Lanka has reduced the time limit to export by implementing the ASYCUDA World electronic data interchange system. "Local entrepreneurs in developing countries are finding it easier to do business than at any time in the last 10 years, highlighting the significant progress that had been made in improving business regulatory practices across the globe," a World Bank and IFC report mentioned. Singapore secured the first place in global rankings on the ease of doing business for the seventh consecutive year, The Sri Lanka Tea Board ceremonially opened their refurbished Sales Centre & Secretariat at 574, Galle Road Colombo 3, on 12 October 2012. Hon. Mahinda Samarasinghe, Minister of Plantation Industries graced the occasion as the Chief Guest, accompanied by Ms. Janaki Kuruppu, Chairperson Sri Lanka Tea Board. To mark the event, an all night Pirith ceremony was held on same day, followed by the arms giving to the Maha Sanga on the following day. The refurbished Sales Centre is now a state of the art onestop shop for Pure Ceylon tea with the Lion Logo endorsement, depicting the supreme quality of Sri Lanka s teas. Stringent quality control from the initial plucking of two leaves and a bud to the final packing of made tea is monitored throughout the process of tea production, both by individual plantations and factories as well as the Sri Lanka Tea Board. Production centers of Ceylon Tea all adhere to minimum standards while most of them are ISO certified. Sri Lanka is also the only country to manufacture tea using ozone friendly methods and the Sri Lanka Tea Board certifies this through a special logo. At the new Sales Center, customers have the option to select a variety of packs from 20 different famous brands of Ceylon Tea such as Zesta, Ranfer, Mackwoods, Tea Tang, Mlesna, IMPRA and Kenton. New global brands such as Akbar, Dilmah, Basilur, Hyson are due to join the collection very soon. w w w. s r I l a n k a e m b a s s y. o r g 2
Ambassador Udayanga Weeratunga hosts Mr. Konstantin Dolgov for a working dinner Ambassador of Sri Lanka in the Russian Federation H.E. Udayanga Weeratunga and Madam Uma Weeratunga hosted Russian Foreign Ministry Commissioner for Human Rights, Democracy and Rule of Law Ambassador at large Mr. Konstantin Dolgov and Madam Natalia Dolgova to a working dinner on 03 rd September. The dinner took place at the Official Residence of Ambassador Weeratunga. The event was arranged to discuss the results of the visit of Mr. Dolgov to Sri Lanka during 19 21 September 2012 at the invitation of Minister of External Affairs of Sri Lanka. During the dinner Ambassador Dolgov briefed Ambassador Udayanga Weeratunga of his discussions with the senior government officials of Sri Lanka on the work already done by the Government of Sri Lanka with regard to reconciliation and development in the country after the end of the Humanitarian Operation by the Sri Lanka Armed Forces in 2009. The efforts of the government for the successful return of Internally Displaced Persons to their original places and the rehabilitation of former LTTE combatants were highly commended by Mr. Dolgov. Ambassador Dolgov also shared the experiences of his brief visit to Sri Lanka. Noting that he has travelled to many countries, Mr. Dolgov compared the positive developments in Sri Lanka. Colombo in particular was appreciated for its cleanliness and well maintenance. He also noted the Sri Lankan hospitality which he enjoyed during his short visit. The discussion also touched on the trade relations between Sri Lanka and Russia. Speaking of the investment opportunities in Russia Mr. Dolgov stressed the need to encourage Sri Lankan entrepreneurs and businessmen to invest in the country. He said steps should be taken to relax the procedures to encourage Sri Lankans to visit Russia and to make use of the opportunities aimed at promoting trade between the two countries. Mr. Bayramov invited Sri Lankan businessmen to make use of the Sri Lankan cultural house (the design was based on Sigiriya the world famous Lion s rock in Sri Lanka) which is nearly constructed in the Etnomir complex, to promote their products in Russia and to develop business partnership with Russian businesses. Moscow Puwath Special Prorate Agreement between SriLankan Airlines and S7 Airlines SriLankan airline was singed a special prorate agreement with S7 airlines. As a result of this initiation, Sri Lankan airlines could use S7 flights beyond Moscow to any point of Russia and S7 airlines in turn could use SriLankan airlines flights to South East Asia from Colombo. In this connection passengers in both Russia and Sri Lanka would be able to enjoy their travel up to the final destination using one airline designator. Both airlines are negotiating enter into a Code Share Partnership on agreed sectors. Mr. Ruslan Bayramov, the Founding President and Manager of "Etnomir also joined the dinner. During the conversation it was noted that the project Etnomir has been designed as an open air museum to promote the ethnic and cultural diversity of the countries around the world. w w w. s r I l a n k a e m b a s s y. o r g 3
අ ප රටට ජගත අවධ නය ය ම ව ණ ල ක බලශක ත සම ළ ව ඩ බ ය හ ඉක ත 22 ව න ද ප ව ත ල ක බලශක ත සම ළ ව ඇම ත මට මහ න ද ර ජපක ෂ ජන ධ පත ත ම ඩ බ ය ර ජ යය බල ද වය නන ප ටත ව ග ය ඉක ත 21 ව න ද ය. ජන ධ පත ආර ය ශ රන ත ර ජපක ෂ ම ත න ය ල ක ර ජ ය න යක ආර ය වන ග සම ළ ව අමතය. ජන ධ පත ත ම සමඟ ජන ධ පත ආර ය ශ රන ත ර ජපක ෂ ම ත න ය, ව ද ශ කටය ත ඇම ත මහ ච ර ය ජ. එල. ප ර ස, ව ද ල බල හ බලශක ත න ය ජ ය ඇම ත ප මල ල ජය ස කර, ජන ධ පත උප ද ශක ප ර ල ම න ත මන ත සච න ව ස ග ණවර ධන, බස න හ ර පළ ත සභ මන ත නව ෆර ෆව ස, ජන ධ පත ල කම ලල ත ව රත ග යන මහත වර ද සහභ ග ව හ. ල ක බලශක ත සම ළ ව ද මහ න ද ර ජපක ෂ ජන ධ පත ත ම ට ද එම සම ළ ව ඇම ත මට අවස ථ ව ස ලස ත බ ණ. තස තව දය පරද ශ ල ක ව ස වර ධනයට ව ඩ කටය ත ර ශ යක ගතව ක ල ය ද ස ද වම න පවත න බව ද ර ට ද ය ණ වක ඇත කර ත බන බව ද න ව ඩ වකටවත ශ ල ක ව තත ත වය ඇව ත බල යන න ය ද ජන ධ පත ත ම එරට ශ ල ක කයන ගන ඉල ල ස ට ය ය. ජන ධ පත ආර ය ශ රන ත ර ජපක ෂ ම ත න ය ද ඩ බ ය ස ච ර ය ද එරට ප හ ට අන තර ජ ත ක පදර ශන සම මන තණ ශ ල ව ප ව ත ල ක ර ජ ය න යක ආර ය වන ග සම ළ වට සහභ ග ව ව ය. ත රස ර ස වර ධනයක උ දස අන ගත පරප ර වන වන බලශක ත ය ස ර ක මට ක න ත වන පම ඛත වය ගන කටය ත කළ ය ත බව ද මම සම ළ ව අමතම න ජන ධ පත ආර ය ශ රන ත ර ජපක ෂ ම ත න ය ප වස ව ය. ඩ බ ය හ ශ ල ක කයන හම ව අවස ථ ව ආස ය න රටවල ව ස න අත ව ඳ න ලබන බලශක ත සම පත ඌනත ව ආර ථ ක ස වර ධනය කර යන ආස ය ත ක රටවල ඉද ර ගමනට බලවත බ ධ වක බව ද මහ ද පන ව ද න ජන ධ පත ත ම ස ධ රණ ව ත සම ස බද යන න ව ත ආක ර යන බලශක ත සම පත හව ල භ ක ත ව ඳ ම ද ස වර ධනය වම න පවත න රටවල අ ප ක ෂ වන සහ හ ම කම ප ළ බඳව ව ශ ෂ යන සලක බ ල ය ය ත බව ද ජන ධ පත ත ම මහ ද පන ව ද න න ය. මම සම ළ ව එළඹ ණ ත රණය අන ව ස ම වසරකම ඔක ත බර 22 ව න ද න ල ක බලශක ත ද නය ලස ස මර ම ය ජන ක ර ණ. සම ළ වට සහභ ග ව ර ජ ය න යක ය 21 ද නක මය අන මත කරම න අස සන ත බ හ. ඩ බ ය හ ප වත ල ක බලශක ත සම ළ වට සහභ ග ව ර ජ ය න යක ය සම හ ඡ ය ර පයකට පන ස ට අය ර www.silumina.lk දදහසකට අධ ක න ය ජ ත ය ප ර සක ද ම සම ළ වට ල ක ය රටවල ර ශ යක න ම සහභ ග ව හ. බලශක ත ත ක ෂණය ස වර ධනය සහ අන ගත බලශක ත ස රක ෂ තත වය සඳහ ක බන ක බලශක ත ව ඩ ද ය ණ ක ර ම සම ළ ව පධ න අරම ණ අතර ව ය. මම සම ළ වට සහභ ග ව මට ප ම ණ ස ට ල ක ර ජ ය න යකයන ක හ ප ද නක සමඟ ස කච ඡ ක ර මට ජන ධ පත ත ම ට අවස ථ ව උද ව ය. ඩ බ ය හ ව සන ශ ල ක කයන හම ව මට ද ජන ධ පත ත ම මම ස ච ර ය ද අමතක න ක ළ ය. w w w. s r I l a n k a e m b a s s y. o r g 4
Strong leadership led us To victory Defence Secretary Secretary Defence and Urban Development Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa addressed the members of the Young Presidents' Organization today (27th October 2012). The meeting was held at the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute of International Relations and Strategic Studies in Colombo this morning. The Young Presidents' Organization (YPO) is an international network of young chief executive officers founded in 1950 in New York. The organization unites approximately 20,000 business leaders in more than 120 countries around a shared mission: Better Leaders Through Education and Idea Exchange. Speaking at the event Secretary Defence said that Sri Lanka was plagued with ruthless terrorist attacks which had caused immense suffering to our entire population and when His Excellency Mahinda Rajapaksa was elected to the Presidency in 2005, he had a mandate from the people to end the terrorist conflict once and for all, a daunting task which many previous governments had failed. The LTTE terrorists had no interest in peace, instead, they exploited the respite given through peace talks and ceasefires to kill its opponents and strengthen its offensive capabilities he said. The terrorist did not allow any democratic freedoms in the areas they dominated so the President was keen to resolve the conflict and his first priority was to do so through peaceful means he added. With the successful end of the humanitarian operation the government was left with a huge task of ensuring the welfare of around 300,000 internally displaced persons he reminded. The government had to demine an area of about 5000 square kilometres of land before resettling the IDPs he said. Rehabilitating thousands of ex LTTE cadres and reintegrating them to society was carried out in a well planned manner the Secretary noted. He mentioned that the government after a national consultation conference with key officials in the UN and other relevant agencies, work on creating welfare villages to house the IDPs began and the facilities there exceeded international standards. He reiterated the effort of the government's commitment in providing relief to the people even though the LTTE did not allow these resources to be used properly. Talking further he said that the Government has launched an initiative to construct over 78,000 houses in the North and East, including houses constructed with donor assistance and the Sri Lankan Army alone has renovated more than 7,500 houses and constructed nearly 4,600 new permanent and 6,000 semi permanent houses for civilians being resettled. And under the government's "Northern Spring" programme most of the infrastructure development work including building of roads, minor tanks, public buildings, hospitals and schools and provision of electricity, water supply and sanitation, upgrading of healthcare facilities were undertaken, he added. Within just three years and four months after the defeat of the LTTE, all the Internally Displaced Persons living in the welfare camps have been successfully resettled and the successful completion of the resettlement programme and the closure of the IDP camps in such a short period is a significant and laudable achievement by any standard he disclosed. Speaking on rehabilitation the Secretary said that speedy actions taken by the Government with the assistance of the military to rehabilitated nearly 12,000 ex LTTE cadres who had surrendered to the Security Forces at the end of the Humanitarian Operation was a complete success as seen on a research conducted by two American academics, Dr. Kruglanski and Dr. Gelfland of the University of Maryland, College Park, which indicated the significant decline in the support of violence amongst all beneficiaries of the rehabilitation programme, including even the most hardcore cadres. He further said that every opportunity has been given to the rehabilitated and reintegrated ex LTTE cadres to resume normal lives in society including assistance to set up their own businesses, obtain funds for self employment, and undertake farming and fisheries related activities. He said that peace and stability the entire country now enjoys has already yielded tremendous dividends as tourist arrivals are on the rise, and the country has been chosen to host several significant international events including the 58th annual Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Conference, the 2012 Twenty20 Cricket World Cup, and the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in 2013. He expressed optimism about the country's future prospects and requested the business leaders to exploit the vast potential the country has to offer including the highly educated work force in fields such as Information Technology. There are a number of Sri Lankan companies that have already made a mark internationally. The same can be said for fields such as Medicine, Accountancy, Engineering, and various other sectors in which Sri Lanka produces large numbers of committed and talented professionals every year he added. Pointing on the government's initiatives he said in order to realise the tremendous growth potential that the country has, the Government of Sri Lanka has undertaken a range of development initiatives and the on going urban development programmes are a case in point. These are w w w. s r I l a n k a e m b a s s y. o r g 5
focused primarily on uplifting the quality of the country's urban spaces through the development of clean, green, people friendly cities and the commercial capital of Colombo is being transformed through several initiatives he added. He was confident that the urban regeneration programme underway in Colombo, and the urban development projects underway in the other cities around the country, will result in the country's urban spaces becoming wonderful cities in which to live. He mentioned several major infrastructure programmes presently underway, including the building of highways between key cities, the upgrading of the railway network, and the expansion of electrification and water supply and building new Ports and airports. Participating in a question and answer session at the end of his speech Secretary Defence said most of the hierarchy of the LTTE were killed at the final stages only a few low rung cadres have managed to escape and are now engaged in false propaganda operations in order to collect funds from the Diaspora. They were engaged in illegal operations like gun running and human smuggling using their shipping fleet various organizations and front offices in many parts of the world he added. He said the government is looking at seeking legal means of stopping existing illegal operation of the LTTE rump. Answering a query the Secretary said the governments had to face many issues like Political/Military/Economic/ Social when seeking a solution to the problem and also there were a lot of external pressures and involvements. But this government addressed all those issues successfully and in constant liaison with other countries and carried out the humanitarian operations he added. He again reiterated the need for political stability in winning the war and also achieving post war development goals of the country. He extended an invitation to all to join hand and work together. Even though the size and the strength of the military was increased the government never compromised on the welfare issues of the general masses he said. Public support was a vital component in the fight against terrorism he noted. The President as the Commander in Chief gave clear directives to military and also personally visited to many parts of the conflict zone during the operations he said. Had we backtracked on our aim during difficult times we would be still embroiled in the war, strong leadership, proper planning and clear directions took us to success, he reminded. The high standard of the professionally qualified military officers with foreign training and experience was exemplified during the operations he said. The reconstruction, resettlement, rehabilitation, and reintegration process has paved the way for the national reconciliation he noted. He further added that at presently the police is maintaining law and order and the military is mostly involved in the government's development initiatives he said. Minister Prof. GL Peiris and Prof. Rajeeva Wijesinghe addressed the Education sessions. A large number of distinguished guests including YPO delegates, senior military officers attended the event. The (YPO) in the Business community are excited at the future prospect of the growth of Sri Lankan Economy. In this regard they have organized a tour to Sri Lanka from 26th 29th October. Young Presidents Organization (YPO) consists of members who own and manage large global businesses spread across the world and comprise of Business leaders in their respective industries. YPO will travel to North to appreciate the strides taken by the Government in Rehabilitation of Ex LTTE combatants and resettling of IDPs' including immense the work undertaken to reconstruct the once war torn peninsula. www.defence.lk 40 th International Pepper Conference, Colombo The 40 th International Pepper Conference began was held from 30 th October to 02 nd November 2012 at Mount Lavina hotel in a bid to iron out several global key issues in the industry. Sri Lanka produced 26,500 tons of pepper last year and earned US$ 30.7 million as pepper export revenue. Sri Lanka produces some of the best high quality sought after pepper, which have been sought after buy foreign citizens for centuries. Pepper is cultivated over an area of 32,800 hectares in the island with Matale, Kandy, Kegalle, Kurunegala and Nuwara Eliya being major districts of cultivation.the International Pepper community (IPC), established under the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for the Asia Pacific (UN ESCAP) is consisted of several countries including Brazil, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam, the major Pepper producers of the world are permanent members of the conference. Hon. Basil Rajapaksa, Minister of Economic Development participated as the chief guest at inauguration ceremony of 40th International pepper community conference held at Mount Lavinia. www.dailynews.lk w w w. s r I l a n k a e m b a s s y. o r g 6
Russian ruble to be stronger than ever next year? Russia's Central Bank has been demonstrating significant moves in its financial policy. In early October, the Central Bank supported the Russian financial system with unprecedented amount of liquidity. In addition, sources do not rule out an opportunity for the Central Bank to purchase mortgage securities, as well as the infrastructure bonds. What will happen to the ruble? On October 2nd, the Central Bank deposited over 1.11 trillion rubles in commercial banks as part of refinancing operations, which corresponds to more than 42 billion dollars. Such amounts have never been deposited before in one single day. "Taking into consideration the fact that Russia's GDP is around $1.85 trillion, the transactions with liquidity account for 2% of annual GDP, produced by the whole country in a year," analyst of Kalita Finance, Alexei Vyazovsky said. One of the main problems of the Russian economy is the high cost of credit. It makes corporations and banks go west and receive credits there. The artificial shortage of money, which the Central Bank of Russia maintains, has long been one of the main reasons for criticism of the institution, whose activities would be often defined as sharply contradictory to national interests. In addition, the Central Bank informed the media about the new ideas to form its assets through the purchase of Russian debt securities. As reported by Kommersant, "... the Bank of Russia considers investing in mortgage bonds... The point of the idea is about the direct purchase of mortgage backed securities by the Central Bank, which will allow banks to raise long term funding from the regulator...". The attention of the Central Bank to infrastructure bonds may become a much more important aspect. They can become a major source of long term money in the Russian economy to finance large scale projects. According to its long standing practice, the Central Bank of Russia keeps about 90% of its assets a foreign currency. In this case, the only channel of the emission of rubles is the purchase of foreign currency, mainly dollars, which makes the Russian currency dependent on the sale of raw materials for exports, which leads to the appearance of large amounts of foreign currency earnings. If this state of affairs is not a form of colonial rule in its pure form, then one may speak about serious limitation of the fiscal sovereignty of the Russian Federation. This dependence leads to the fact that during the period of capital outflow, when it is the Central Bank that sells currency, the received rubles do not come back in the economy, which leads to another contraction of money supplies in the country. According to the Central Bank, the net outflow during the first nine months of this year reached nearly $57.9 billion. In the 4 th quarter, Russian companies and banks will have to pay $41 billion of debt to Western creditors. The positive changes in the monetization of the Russian economy and the moves to refuse from the function of a privileged currency exchanger generate quite optimistic expectations. "This is a serious bid for the emergence of sovereign emission in the country, which will not be dependent on the price of oil, gas, metals and currency flows into Russia," says Alexey Vyazovsky. Deputy chairman of Russia's Central Bank Alexey Ulyukayev has recently said that the CB was planning to refuse from the currency band by 2015 with the transition to the policy of inflation targeting. According to Mr. Vyazovsky, this will increase the value of the interest rate of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation in the national economy. Once the Central Bank refuses from the exchange rate band and reduces the presence of the Central Bank in the foreign exchange market, the ruble exchange rate will fluctuate against the euro and the U.S. dollar stronger and freer than ever before. And most likely, the ruble will have a significant potential for strengthening. If all goes according to this scenario, analysts predict the strengthening of the Russian currency within two or three years to the level of 22 23 rubles per dollar. This will cause a blow to domestic producers, but in general, the Russian industry will win by improving the investment climate. Sergey Nikolaev www.pravda.ru Russia writes off $20 billion for African countries Russia has written off the debt of over $20 billion to several African countries, the Head of the Department of International Organizations of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Russia, Vladimir Sergeyev, stated speaking at the UN General Assembly. The move seems to be strange and inappropriate under the conditions of the economic crisis. But the Russian authorities think strategically. Why did Russia do that? Why does Russia need Africa? This write off is not the first one. In 2008, Moscow wrote off $16 billion of debt of African countries. The diplomat said w w w. s r I l a n k a e m b a s s y. o r g 7
that Russia transferred $50 million to the World Bank's foundation for poor countries. The funds of the organization are directed to the development of the African region to the south from the Sahara desert. To crown it all, Russia allocated $ 43 million to the World Bank program during the last four years. The funds were assigned to improve education in developing countries especially in African countries. More than 8,000 students from Africa study at the Russian higher education institutions, and more than a half of them study for free. Russia has signed agreements with Tanzania and Zambia within the scope of the "debt for development" program. The agreements stipulate that the debt of those countries to Russia would be targeted for their development. The Russian government intends to sign similar agreements with Mozambique, Benin and Ethiopia. Russia regularly writes off the debts of its debtors worldwide. The debts were formed during the Soviet period, when those countries were buying weapons from the Soviet Union. In September of this year, the Russian Federation "forgave" the debt of $11 billion to North Korea. In the summer of 2010, Russia wrote off 12 billion dollars to Afghanistan, and in the winter of 2008 nearly 8 billion dollars to Iraq. Over the last 11 years, Russia has written off foreign debts in the total amount of $80 billion and paid $124 billion to its creditors. Here is the list of the largest debts that were written off by Russia: Afghanistan $12 billion, Iraq $11.9 billion, Mongolia $11 billion, North Korea $11 billion, Syria $9.8 billion, Ethiopia $4.8 billion, Libya $4.5 billion, Algeria $4.3 billion, Nicaragua $4.3 billion, Angola $3.5 billion. The figures are not small at all. This generosity hides balanced and prudent pragmatism. Today, major powers are fighting for the African continent, which plays an increasingly important role in the policies of developed countries for their influence in Africa. The United States, China, England, France and India are increasing their political and economic influence in Africa. Russia does not want to be an exception. The interest in Africa is first of all based on its raw materials. In addition, Africa is a huge sales market. The African continent is abundant with resources. It ranks first in the world in terms of reserves of chrome, manganese ore, gold, platinum, diamonds, vanadium, and phosphate. Africa comes second on the reserves of uranium and copper ores. The black continent takes third place in the world on the reserves of iron ores, gas and oil. Which country would not want a piece of this pie? Russian business also has its economic interests in Africa. Lukoil, Rusal, Gazprom, Norilsk Nickel, Renova, Alrosa, Rosoboronexport, Rosatom, financial and telecommunications companies this is not the complete list of companies that operate in today's Africa. Russian companies used to invest in the mining industry. Nowadays, the range of economic cooperation has expanded. However, it should be noted that Africa accounts for only 1.5 percent of all of Russia's investments in foreign countries. This is the reason that makes Russia write off the debts of African countries. Some experts believe that Russia in its relations with Africa seeks to return to the kind of cooperation that existed during the Soviet Union. This is not true to fact. Moscow understands that the use of previous models of cooperation does not make sense at present time. Africa represents an actual economic interest for the Russian Federation. Russia's major economic interests on the African continent include: gaining access to certain categories of strategic exploitation of mineral resources (diamonds, PGM, gas); conducting the joint development of resources to increase the impact of exporting countries in the world economic system; the sales of its industrial products, exports of services and capital. Indeed, unlike U.S., China and India, Russia is not very interested in the imports of raw mineral resources from Africa. This is what distinguishes our country from its competitors. It should be clarified that the Russian industry has a certain lack of certain minerals (manganese, chromium, bauxite), which could be imported from Africa. But the Russian economy is deprived of critical dependence on African resources. The cooperation in the field of raw materials, production, processing and marketing is much more interesting because Russia has an opportunity to become a world leader at this point. In addition to the above mentioned gas, platinum metals and diamonds, one may add uranium and oil. It is these markets that Russian companies are mostly interested in. Russia is also interested in the development on the African continent of such sectors of economy as energy, metals and petrochemicals. Russia actively exports weapons and technology introduction equipment to Africa that other countries are not interested in developing in Africa. Thus, the export potential of the Russian industry directly depends on the active state support of the project to modernize the objects that were built on the continent during the Soviet times. Russia intends to restore its former influence in Africa and gain new areas of capital investment. In September 2006, Putin visited South Africa and Morocco. In June 2009, Medvedev visited four African countries Egypt, Nigeria, Namibia and Angola. The visits outlined Russia's interest in the resumption of economic and political relations with African countries. Russian banks also show their interest in Africa's financial sector. VTB Bank (Russia's Foreign Economic Bank) opened branches in Namibia and Angola. Telecommunications companies evince interest in Africa too. Such telecom companies as AFK System, Altimo, MegaFon, Russian concern Sitronics consider the African continent a promising market for their expansion. To increase its influence on the continent, Russia has to make certain concessions. Writing off billions of dollars in debt is an option, taking into consideration the fact that chances for those debts to return are slim. Most of those debts are the debts of the USSR. It is very difficult for any state to get such old debts back. Therefore, a creditor w w w. s r I l a n k a e m b a s s y. o r g 8
country looks for best ways to write off debts in exchange for certain privileges. Former Economy Minister Andrei Nechayev said that any write off was based on several constituents. First of all, a creditor may resort to this practice when it is almost impossible to have the debt paid back. In this case, creditors try to get something else in return. Secondly, it is political influence, and finally the financial image of the country. When a country writes off somebody else's debt, it means that the financial situation in this country is stable. Russia intends to enter international capital markets in the near future, so it is necessary to show the strengths of its economy. Therefore Russia acts strategically correct. Sergei Vasilenko Pravda.Ru T20 World cup spurstourist arrivals The recently concluded T20 World Cup had a major positive impactto tourist arrivals with over 35, 000 room nights being sold during the period. Minister of Sports, Mahindananda Aluthgamage said that this event was highly successful and was marketed well. The country has been organizing many international events such as night races, Beach Volleyball, Windsurfing, Golf and Athletic championships, which drew many foreigners. "We would continueto organize more events of this magnitude," he said. It was also reported thattourist arrivals for September increased by 18.1 percent in comparisonto last year. Thetotal arrivals for September stood at 71,111tourists. This figure was 60,219 in September 2011.To date, arrivals hadtotalled at 693,772 from the 598,006 during the same period last year. During the first nine months of 2012,Tourist arrivals from Western Europe reached 269,169, a 18.6 percent increase from the 226,990tourists arrivals in the same period of last year. Arrivals from North America had risen by 29.9 percentto 3,358 in September with Canada rising 23.7 percentto 1,490 and USA rising 35.3 percentto 1,868. Arrivals from South Asia this year increased marginally in the first nine months. Sri Lanka is targeting a golden double of attracting one million arrivals and a revenue of US $ one billion. Last yeartourist arrivals recorded 855,975 comparedto the 654,476 arrivals in 2010. Since the end of the war leading a humanitarian operation in May 2009, the country had seen developing intourism sector as well rise up intourist arrivals every year for the past three years. Central Bank of Sri Lanka surpasses US Federal Reserve The Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) realised a massive profit of US$430 million from its reserve management activities in 2011. According to an extensive research by an expert team from the University of Colombo, the CBSL s profits of US$ 430 million on its average reserves of just of US $ 6.5 billion was substantially higher, both in absolute and percentage terms, than that earned by the US Federal Reserve Bank in 2011. The reserve management activities of the US Federal Reserve only generated a profit US$ 401 million on a reserve of US $ 42 billion or just 0.9 percent, while the CBSL made a profit US $ 430 million, or 6.6 percent from its reserve management activities. The foreign reserve profit earned by the CBSL of 6.6 percent for 2011 is the highest in the world by any Central Bank in that year in percentage terms. The research has also shown that the reserve management profits earned by a majority of central banks all over the world was less than percent and that very few central banks were able to generate profits in excess of four percent on their average reserves, mainly because 2011 was an year that was extremely challenging for reserve management. www.dailynews.lk http://www.youtube.com/user/lankaembassymoscow visit "LANKAEMBASSYMOSCOW" in Pro Foo w w w. s r I l a n k a e m b a s s y. o r g 9