Category: Daily Financial Times

Ambassador of Sri Lanka to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Ameer Ajwad, met with Minister of Transport and Logistics Services of Saudi Arabia, Eng. Saleh bin Nasser bin Alali Aljasser, for a productive discussion on enhancing cooperation in the fields of maritime, ports, and aviation between the two countries. Both sides explored avenues to strengthen multilateral engagement in the international maritime domain and deepen bilateral collaboration in aviation, shipping, and port development. The discussions included the prospect of a bilateral agreement on mutual recognition of qualification certificates for seafarers.

PMF Finance PLC has appointed Nalin Warnakula to its Board as an Independent Non-Executive Director.

Warnakula is the Chief Financial Officer of Sterling Automobiles Lanka Ltd. He is a dynamic and results-oriented executive with over 22 years of vast experience in different industries such as Automobiles, Apparel, Trading, Logistics, Leisure, Medical, and Packaging.

His proven expertise in strategic planning, financial management and corporate governance has driven many corporates to a sustainable business growth.

He is a Fellow member of Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka and also a Fellow member of Association of Business Executive of United Kingdom. He holds an MBA in Australian Institute of Business, Adelaide, Australia and a BSc. Business Administration (Finance Special) Degree in University of Sri Jayewardenepura.

Having completed his training at KPMG Sri Lanka, he started his career as Head of Finance and General Manager – Finance of Lidechsi Group. He then transitioned to the Apparel sector as Chief Financial Officer at GC Lanka Clothing Ltd.

Thereafter he continued his career growth, becoming Group Finance Manager of MRC Group of Companies.

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake announced that Sri Lanka has secured USD 823 million in Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) by September this year.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) has helped seven countries secure $5.8 million in financing from the Kunming Biodiversity Fund (KBF) to integrate biodiversity into agrifood systems and drive action under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF).

The selected projects support multiple KMGBF targets on sustainable agriculture, ecosystem protection, knowledge management, the control of invasive species and the engagement of local communities – including Indigenous Peoples – in biodiversity management for food and agriculture.

FAO Director-General QU Dongyu welcomed the announcement, saying: ‘The Kunming Biodiversity Fund is instrumental in helping developing countries achieve global biodiversity goals through sustainable agriculture under the overarching guidance of the Four Betters, and in amplifying the central role of agrifood systems in halting biodiversity loss, promoting food diversity and providing solutions to the climate crisis.’

Launched by the People’s Republic of China in 2021 during the first part of the UN Biodiversity Conference under China’s Presidency, the KBF supports developing countries for biodiversity protection and in meeting the KMGBF’s global goals, with a focus on regions rich in biodiversity but in need of stronger capacity and resources.

The funding will target the following projects:

1. Mainstreaming biodiversity into agrifood systems to implement National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs)

This project aims to mainstream biodiversity into agrifood systems by creating enabling conditions that accelerate the implementation of NBSAPs in Madagascar, Uganda, and Mexico. It will enhance policy alignment, strengthen institutional capacity, improve financial incentives for biodiversity-friendly practices, and promote knowledge sharing.

2. Empowering communities through knowledge management of ecosystems and species to achieve the KMGBF in the Cook Islands

By improving knowledge systems, modernising data, and promoting sustainable practices, the project will empower communities to conserve, restore, and manage biodiversity. It will establish a national ecosystem classification, revitalise the biodiversity database, and support community-led conservation using traditional knowledge and agroecology, with a focus on women and youth.

3. Effective management of invasive alien species for ecosystem benefits in Nepal

By focusing on halting the spread and managing existing populations of invasive alien species, the project aims to reduce their impact on biodiversity and local livelihoods through community-based action, participatory approaches, and stronger institutional capacity.

4. Prevention and control of invasive alien species for enhanced biosecurity in Sri Lanka

This project will strengthen national capacity to prevent and manage invasive alien species by improving border controls, training frontline teams, and involving communities in removal efforts and awareness campaigns.

5. Strengthening ecosystem resilience and sustainable management of Lake Egirdir in Trkiye

The project will raise public awareness and promote biodiversity-friendly practices to protect the lake and its ecosystems. It will also support water-efficient agriculture and encourage sustainable livelihoods in the region.

The role of agrifood systems in implementing the KMGBF

Agrifood systems are directly linked to more than half of the KMGBF’s targets. FAO plays a key role in their implementation by fostering policy coherence, promoting best practices, and scaling up innovations to accelerate progress towards global biodiversity goals.

FAO is committed to transforming agrifood systems into drivers of sustainable development. This transformation is central to reversing biodiversity loss while ensuring food security, improved nutrition and resilient livelihoods for all.

The Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) has called for public input on proposed amendments to the Finance Business Act (FBA) aimed at strengthening the regulation, supervision and resolution framework for finance companies and addressing unauthorised financial activities.

Recognising the need to reinforce oversight mechanisms within the financial sector, the Central Bank said the proposed changes are designed to enhance the regulation and supervision of Finance Companies (FCs), improve the investigation and prosecution of unauthorised finance businesses, and streamline the resolution and winding up of non-viable finance companies.

The CBSL has invited the general public, stakeholders, and industry participants to submit their views, suggestions, and comments on the draft amendments by 30 November 2025.

The draft amendments can be accessed via the Central Bank’s official website under the public consultation section at https://www.cbsl.gov.lk/en/consultation-papers-for-public-comments.

Feedback can be submitted through post, fax, or email under the subject line ‘Views/Suggestions/Comments on the draft amendments to the Finance Business Act.’

Submissions should be directed to:

Director, Department of Supervision of Non-Bank Financial Institutions,

Central Bank of Sri Lanka, No. 30, Janadhipathi Mawatha, Colombo 01.

complicity of Arab regimes in Israel’s war against Hamas and resulting genocide in Gaza is yet to be told in full. However, some facts have come to light, and they need be understood when discussing the Arab regimes’ endorsement of Trump’s 20-point ‘Comprehensive plan to end the Gaza conflict’.

While death, devastation and genocide in Gaza had received worldwide condemnation including from UN and provoked worldwide pro-Palestinian protests tarnished by Western media as antisemitism, there is a second theatre of war threatening to escalate into a wider conflict in Sudan and in which UAE among the Arab regimes in particular seems to be involved directly by supplying weapons and finance to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), an outgrowth of the notorious Janjaweed militia which terrorised Sudanese communities in the 2003 Darfur conflict, and currently fighting against the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).

It is developing into a regional war between RSF backed by UAE and SAF by Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Already, according to UN more than 62,000 people had fled their homes since the fall of El Fasher in North Darfur, and the atrocities inflicted by RSF appear to be taking shape of a genocide against non-Arab communities such as Masalit, Zaghawa and Fur. UAE weapons manufactured in UK are found to be flowing openly through Somalia’s Bossaso airport and clandestinely via the porous borders of Libya, Chad and Uganda.

Motivated by greed to control gold mines

UAE’s involvement in Sudan is motivated primarily by its greed to control the gold mines in that region. According to the development group Swissaid, 66.5% of gold exported from Sudan to UAE in 2022 had been smuggled out. But UAE’s complicity in Gaza war has an ideological backdrop that is common to all its fellow Arab regimes. UAE’s aircrafts carrying cargo of all varieties including weapons are reported landing regularly at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport, and Doha has become an entertainment haven with sex and drugs for Israeli soldiers to spend their holidays there. Worse still is UAE’s hiring of extremist Islamist groups from other countries to fight Hamas, and Western media portrayed them as Palestinians rising against Hamas.

Being one of the signatories of the Trump-engineered Abraham Accord that seeks to normalise relations between Israel and its Arab neighbours, UAE’s cargo delivery may be considered as part of that accord’s obligations. However, in the context of Israel’s war against Hamas and the ongoing genocide in Gaza the behaviour of UAE speaks volumes about Arab regimes’ hatred of Hamas.

In the joint statement published by the Muslim signatories to Trump’s peace plan they declared their ‘determination to dismantle extremism and radicalism in all its forms’. ‘No society’ they said, ‘can flourish when violence and racism is normalised, or when radical ideologies threaten the fabric of civil life’. If one reads between lines, one will understand that this statement implies that Hamas is an extremist and radical entity which by its violent act of resistance on 7 October 2023 had disturbed a status quo which allowed Arab regimes to forget the issue of Palestine and carry on with their foreign relations agenda.

orsing Israel’s and Trump’s uncompromising stand

The statement therefore endorses Israel’s and Trump’s uncompromising stand in eliminating Hamas unless it disarms, surrenders and keeps away from any involvement in Trump’s ‘transitional governance by technocrats’ protected by Multinational Peacekeeping Force in Gaza. Netanyahu has already declared that Israel would determine who would be the participants in that multinational force. Why do Arab regimes fear Hamas victory in Gaza?

Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan al-Muslimin) a Sunni Islamist organisation founded in Egypt by Hassan al-Banna in 1928. Its main objective was to install governments in Muslim countries which would govern according to the norms and values of Islamic sharia.

After the 2011 uprising against President Hosni Mubarak’s tyrannical regime in Egypt, the leader of Muslim Brotherhood Muhammed Morsi was elected as President, but the chaos that followed brought down his government, Morsi was imprison and the government was retaken by the ancient regime with obvious backing from US and Western powers. Threatened by the rise of Islamism Muslim Brotherhood was banned in all Arab countries.

In Gaza, Muslim Brotherhood was introduced by Sheikh Ahmad Yassin in 1973 not as a political party but as an Islamic Welfare Centre (al-Mujamma’ al-Islami) to educate the Muslim youth who Yassin found had fallen victims to leftist ideologies under the influence of Yasser Arafat’s PLO. It was from this educational mission Hamas as a political entity grew up, and its Qassam brigade owes its name to Yassin. When Hamas entered politics and captured the Palestinian Legislative Council in Gaza in 2006, it did not lay down its weapons as Sinn Fein of IRA did, but as Jamila al-Shanti the most prominent female Hamas activist said, ‘It wasn’t a choice between resistance and politics, it was to protect the resistance’ (Beverley Milton-Edwards and Stephen Farrel, HAMAS, polity, 2024, p. 163).

Hamas’ Muslim Brotherhood origins and Arab rulers’ fear

Thus, it was Hamas’ Muslim Brotherhood origins with its unrelenting resistance against Israel’s military invasion that keep sending shockwaves among Arab rulers who fear that a Hamas victory would inspire other Islamist groups to rise against those regimes and demand a more democratic political system. Hence, the regimes’ complicity with Israel’s genocide in Gaza to throw out Hamas. Having witnessed the chaos in Egypt under Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood Presidency these rulers and their mullah community might have been convinced by the 14th century Hanbali Muslim scholar Ibn Taimiya of Damascus, who is quoted to have said in his Kitab al-Siyasa al-Sharia that a century of tyranny was preferable to a day of anarchy.

Yet, over the last two years despite their partnership with Israel and Israel’s military might Hamas with meaningful assistance from Iran, Jordan’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthis, has not surrendered and remains a force to reckon with. This is why Trump with his 20-Point Peace Plan is trying to give it an international flavour by bringing in the five Arab regimes and three other more populous Muslim countries. It is a plan if implemented in full with blessing from the eight Muslim signatories Gaza and the West Bank would be passed under the suzerainty of Israel to make it Eretz.

LIV Golf events will be extended to 72 holes from 2026, putting them in line with the sport’s established tours.

The Saudi Arabia-backed circuit was launched in 2022 with 54-hole events and even takes its name from the Roman numeral for 54 – LIV.

The unconventional format played a role in players being denied official ranking points, with most LIV events having been played from Friday to Sunday.

They will now be contested from Thursday of tournament weeks – apart from a Wednesday start for February’s LIV Golf Riyadh.

Two-time major winner Jon Rahm, who won his second straight LIV title in August, said that ‘this is a win for the league, and the players’.

‘LIV Golf is a player’s league,’ said the former world number one. ‘We are competitors to the core and we want every opportunity to compete at the highest level and to perfect our craft.

‘Moving to 72 holes is the logical next step that strengthens the competition, tests us more fully, and, if the growing galleries from last season are any indication, delivers more of what the fans want.’

Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) points play a key role in determining entry into golf’s four majors.

LIV Golf players have slid down the rankings with Rahm now 71st in the world while Dustin Johnson, another former world number one, is 604th.

For each regular season event, the individual competition will be decided over 72 holes of stroke play.

The team competition will continue to run concurrently, with each team’s cumulative individual stroke play scores determining the team result.

The 2026 Budget presented yesterday by President and Finance Minister Anura Kumara Disanayake has given a big boost for Sri Lanka’s aspiration of becoming a digital economy.

The Government will invest Rs. 35.6 billion to advance digitisation across the country with Disanayake expecting these measures to promote inclusive digital access.

The President said Sri Lanka has a high potential to emerge as a regional hub for setting up data centres. ‘There are many crucial steps that we need to take in attracting investments in data centres. To encourage these investments, an attractive environment should be created in this sector for foreign and local investors through financial incentives, green energy use incentives, low-cost electricity at the initial stage, and concessional provision of necessary land,’ the President said. As an initial step, it is proposed to allocate Rs. 500 million for 2026.

He also said to accelerate the spread of digital technology, a simpler and faster unique approval process will be established for the construction of digital infrastructure facilities such as communication towers. It is proposed to suspend the tax applicable to new towers constructed under this digital technology expansion program for a period of five years.

To attract investment, a fund will be established in 2026 to accelerate the growth of the start-ups ecosystem. An initial Government grant of Rs. 1.5 billion has been allocated under the Ministry of Digital Economy expenditure head for the establishment of the fund.

It is also proposed to establish ‘Virtual Special Economic Zones’ through the Board of Investment to practically operate in Sri Lanka, generating exports and employments.

He revealed that the first digital National Identity Card will be issued early next year saying the move will not be thwarted by short-sighted and unfounded critics.

Additionally Rs. 750 million has been allocated to establish an AI data centre.

He also said that all Government payments will be integrated into a digital payment system with service waived and QR payment charges lifted on payments below Rs. 5,000.

To improve internet coverage construction of transmission towers will be incentivised with grant of tax waiver for five years. A broadband voucher will be provided to children from Aswesuma beneficiary households to enhance online education.

Two new dedicated IT zones are planned for establishment in Digana and Nuwara Eliya under the Board of Investment (BOI) in addition to reactivating those in Galle and Kurunegala.

The Colombo stock market ended the week on a positive note yesterday, with both key indices rising sharply as investors reacted favourably to the Budget presented by President and Finance Minister Anura Kumara Disanayake.

The benchmark ASPI gained by 0.98% or 225 points and the active S and P SL20 by 1.13%. During the week, the ASPI and the S and P SL20 gained 2.3% and 2.7% respectively.

Turnover yesterday was Rs. 6.7 billion whilst the average for the week was Rs. 5.73 billion.

Crossings accounted for 13% of turnover led by DFCC (Rs. 245.7 million), LGL (Rs. 198.6 million), and PLC (Rs. 145 million).

First Capital said the Colombo bourse extended its positive momentum as the national Budget was presented yesterday.

Investor focus was largely directed towards Banking sector counters, while retail participation remained robust and HNW activity continued at a moderate level.

Key positive contributors to the index included SFCL, COMB, SAMP, HNB, and VONE.

The Banking sector led market activity, accounting for 23% of total turnover, followed by the Capital Goods and Food, Beverage and Tobacco sectors, which collectively contributed 32%.

Asia Securities said foreigners recorded a net outflow of Rs. 91.5 million. Net foreign buying topped in JKH at Rs. 47.6 million, while selling topped in PLC at Rs. 145.4 million.

NDB Securities said high net worth and institutional investor participation was noted in Sampath Bank, DFCC Bank and Sunshine Holdings.

Mixed interest was observed in LAUGFS Gas, Bogala Graphite Lanka and John Keells Holdings whilst retail interest was noted in SMB Leasing, Co-Operative Insurance Company and Industrial Asphalts. Foreign participation in the market activity remained at subdued levels with foreigners closing as net sellers.

The Banking sector was the top contributor to the market turnover (due to DFCC Bank and Sampath Bank) whilst the sector index gained 1.56%. The share price of DFCC Bank gained Rs. 2.25 to close at Rs. 164.25. The share price of Sampath Bank recorded a gain of Rs. 2 to close at Rs. 150.

The Capital Goods sector was the second highest contributor to the market turnover (due to John Keells Holdings), whilst the sector index increased by 0.84%.

The share price of John Keells Holdings moved up by 20 cents to close at Rs. 22. LAUGFS Gas and Bogala Graphite Lanka were also included amongst the top turnover contributors. The share price of LAUGFS Gas increased by Rs. 3.30 to close at Rs. 71.70. The share price of Bogala Graphite Lanka appreciated by Rs. 27.25 to close at Rs. 137.

complicity of Arab regimes in Israel’s war against Hamas and resulting genocide in Gaza is yet to be told in full. However, some facts have come to light, and they need be understood when discussing the Arab regimes’ endorsement of Trump’s 20-point ‘Comprehensive plan to end the Gaza conflict’.

While death, devastation and genocide in Gaza had received worldwide condemnation including from UN and provoked worldwide pro-Palestinian protests tarnished by Western media as antisemitism, there is a second theatre of war threatening to escalate into a wider conflict in Sudan and in which UAE among the Arab regimes in particular seems to be involved directly by supplying weapons and finance to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), an outgrowth of the notorious Janjaweed militia which terrorised Sudanese communities in the 2003 Darfur conflict, and currently fighting against the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).

It is developing into a regional war between RSF backed by UAE and SAF by Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Already, according to UN more than 62,000 people had fled their homes since the fall of El Fasher in North Darfur, and the atrocities inflicted by RSF appear to be taking shape of a genocide against non-Arab communities such as Masalit, Zaghawa and Fur. UAE weapons manufactured in UK are found to be flowing openly through Somalia’s Bossaso airport and clandestinely via the porous borders of Libya, Chad and Uganda.

Motivated by greed to control gold mines

UAE’s involvement in Sudan is motivated primarily by its greed to control the gold mines in that region. According to the development group Swissaid, 66.5% of gold exported from Sudan to UAE in 2022 had been smuggled out. But UAE’s complicity in Gaza war has an ideological backdrop that is common to all its fellow Arab regimes. UAE’s aircrafts carrying cargo of all varieties including weapons are reported landing regularly at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport, and Doha has become an entertainment haven with sex and drugs for Israeli soldiers to spend their holidays there. Worse still is UAE’s hiring of extremist Islamist groups from other countries to fight Hamas, and Western media portrayed them as Palestinians rising against Hamas.

Being one of the signatories of the Trump-engineered Abraham Accord that seeks to normalise relations between Israel and its Arab neighbours, UAE’s cargo delivery may be considered as part of that accord’s obligations. However, in the context of Israel’s war against Hamas and the ongoing genocide in Gaza the behaviour of UAE speaks volumes about Arab regimes’ hatred of Hamas.

In the joint statement published by the Muslim signatories to Trump’s peace plan they declared their ‘determination to dismantle extremism and radicalism in all its forms’. ‘No society’ they said, ‘can flourish when violence and racism is normalised, or when radical ideologies threaten the fabric of civil life’. If one reads between lines, one will understand that this statement implies that Hamas is an extremist and radical entity which by its violent act of resistance on 7 October 2023 had disturbed a status quo which allowed Arab regimes to forget the issue of Palestine and carry on with their foreign relations agenda.

orsing Israel’s and Trump’s uncompromising stand

The statement therefore endorses Israel’s and Trump’s uncompromising stand in eliminating Hamas unless it disarms, surrenders and keeps away from any involvement in Trump’s ‘transitional governance by technocrats’ protected by Multinational Peacekeeping Force in Gaza. Netanyahu has already declared that Israel would determine who would be the participants in that multinational force. Why do Arab regimes fear Hamas victory in Gaza?

Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan al-Muslimin) a Sunni Islamist organisation founded in Egypt by Hassan al-Banna in 1928. Its main objective was to install governments in Muslim countries which would govern according to the norms and values of Islamic sharia.

After the 2011 uprising against President Hosni Mubarak’s tyrannical regime in Egypt, the leader of Muslim Brotherhood Muhammed Morsi was elected as President, but the chaos that followed brought down his government, Morsi was imprison and the government was retaken by the ancient regime with obvious backing from US and Western powers. Threatened by the rise of Islamism Muslim Brotherhood was banned in all Arab countries.

In Gaza, Muslim Brotherhood was introduced by Sheikh Ahmad Yassin in 1973 not as a political party but as an Islamic Welfare Centre (al-Mujamma’ al-Islami) to educate the Muslim youth who Yassin found had fallen victims to leftist ideologies under the influence of Yasser Arafat’s PLO. It was from this educational mission Hamas as a political entity grew up, and its Qassam brigade owes its name to Yassin. When Hamas entered politics and captured the Palestinian Legislative Council in Gaza in 2006, it did not lay down its weapons as Sinn Fein of IRA did, but as Jamila al-Shanti the most prominent female Hamas activist said, ‘It wasn’t a choice between resistance and politics, it was to protect the resistance’ (Beverley Milton-Edwards and Stephen Farrel, HAMAS, polity, 2024, p. 163).

Hamas’ Muslim Brotherhood origins and Arab rulers’ fear

Thus, it was Hamas’ Muslim Brotherhood origins with its unrelenting resistance against Israel’s military invasion that keep sending shockwaves among Arab rulers who fear that a Hamas victory would inspire other Islamist groups to rise against those regimes and demand a more democratic political system. Hence, the regimes’ complicity with Israel’s genocide in Gaza to throw out Hamas. Having witnessed the chaos in Egypt under Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood Presidency these rulers and their mullah community might have been convinced by the 14th century Hanbali Muslim scholar Ibn Taimiya of Damascus, who is quoted to have said in his Kitab al-Siyasa al-Sharia that a century of tyranny was preferable to a day of anarchy.

Yet, over the last two years despite their partnership with Israel and Israel’s military might Hamas with meaningful assistance from Iran, Jordan’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthis, has not surrendered and remains a force to reckon with. This is why Trump with his 20-Point Peace Plan is trying to give it an international flavour by bringing in the five Arab regimes and three other more populous Muslim countries. It is a plan if implemented in full with blessing from the eight Muslim signatories Gaza and the West Bank would be passed under the suzerainty of Israel to make it Eretz.