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Hello Biz+ Business Stories That Move the Future 🚀 Sri Lanka's business news, trends & entrepreneur stories.

Sri Lanka's business media brand 📈 News, trends, events & the stories behind the brands.

02/10/2026

Sri Lanka just spent a week selling Port City Colombo to the Gulf.

A delegation led by Economic Commission Chairman Harsha Amarasekera PC took the pitch through Muscat, Abu Dhabi and Doha, meeting Oman's Khazaen Economic City, the Oman Chamber of Commerce and the Qatar Chamber of Commerce.

What's on offer: a special economic zone with its own regulator, single-window approvals, foreign currency-designated operations, favourable corporate tax rates and capital allowances, and a Sharia-compliant finance framework.

That last piece is built for Gulf capital specifically.

DMCC Deputy CEO Feryal Ahmadi, speaking in Abu Dhabi: "Free trade zones in Dubai, Singapore, and Colombo will be extremely important as connectors for businesses moving forward."

No investment figures or commitments were announced.

🏗️ Source: Daily FT; Colombo Port City Economic Commission

01/10/2026

Inflation is at 8%. The target is 5%. The Central Bank held rates anyway.

The Overnight Policy Rate stays at 8.75% after today's Monetary Policy Board meeting.

Why not raise it? Because this inflation isn't domestic. It came from energy prices, driven by Middle East tensions. Higher interest rates don't bring down the price of oil, they slow borrowing, spending and hiring.

And the economy is running: 4.7% real growth in the first half of 2026. Private credit growth is already moderating after May's tightening.

The Board expects inflation to stay in high single digits until the first quarter of 2027, then ease toward 5%.

Next review: 20 November.

📊 Source: Central Bank of Sri Lanka, Monetary Policy Review, 30 September 2026

There's no property tax in the 2027 Budget. But it's worth knowing what was actually proposed.Under the IMF programme's ...
30/09/2026

There's no property tax in the 2027 Budget. But it's worth knowing what was actually proposed.

Under the IMF programme's Second Review in June 2024, Sri Lanka was to introduce an imputed rental income tax - a tax on owner-occupied and vacant residential property, charged on the rent a property could earn rather than rent actually received.

It was originally scheduled to take effect before the April 2025 tax year.

Speaking in Gampaha on Sunday, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake confirmed it is not in the coming budget, arguing that property is built from earnings that have already been taxed.

That's a third budget without it.

📄 Source: Daily FT; IMF Extended Fund Facility Second Review, June 2024

29/09/2026

Unemployment rate is about 43%.

For young people with a degree, it's 43%.

That's the highest among 12 Asia Pacific economies the IMF compared ahead of India at 42% and Bangladesh at 36%. Singapore sits around 8%, Japan around 4%.

The gap inside our own numbers is the harder part. Overall youth unemployment is roughly 22%. Among graduates it's double that. Among educated workers of all ages, it's about 6%.

The IMF puts it down to a mismatch, qualifications that don't line up with what employers are actually hiring for. It also flags AI as a growing pressure on young workers if adoption moves faster than skills do.

This isn't a story about degrees being worthless. It's about what we're training people for.

📊 Source: IMF, Finance & Development, September 2026 (2025 data)

The Government remains committed to raising the monthly personal income tax-free threshold to Rs. 200,000, Deputy Minist...
28/09/2026

The Government remains committed to raising the monthly personal income tax-free threshold to Rs. 200,000, Deputy Minister of Economic Development Nishantha Jayaweera told Parliament.

He said the policy commitment remains in place, while noting that no promise had been made to implement the increase within the Government’s first year.

Current threshold: Rs. 150,000
Proposed threshold: Rs. 200,000

The timing of any further change has not yet been announced.

27/09/2026

Her Contracts were Terminated!

People threw dirt at her. Her contract was pulled. She was terminated.

She didn't back down.

Today she sits on the Mrs World - but the real story is what she survived to get there.

26/09/2026

Rs. 41 billion lost in three years. Then Softlogic posted a profit of Rs. 24 million.

It's a small number - and that's exactly why it matters. It's the group's first pre tax profit since 2019.

Revenue hit Rs. 129 billion, a 10 year high.

Turnarounds don't start with a big year. They start with stopping the bleeding.

📊 Source: Softlogic Holdings PLC, FY26 results

25/09/2026

The part of her journey nobody saw.

Former Mrs. World Caroline Jurie had to leave part of her costume behind at the airport on her way to America. She competed without it.

Full interview coming soon on Asia+TV. 🔔

23/09/2026

We're still growing. Just slower. 📉

4.2% last quarter, down from 5.0%.
Construction and mining are doing the heavy lifting - agriculture went backwards, −2.3%.

One sector building, one sector shrinking. Which one feeds more people?

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