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Sri Lanka abandons plans to sell national carrier

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Sri Lanka’s new government has abandoned plans to sell the debt-ridden national airline SriLankan Airlines, but will restructure it for a more profitable future.

“President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has instructed that the airline should be an institution that all Sri Lankans are proud of, and should be owned by Sri Lankans,” the airline’s new chairman Sarath Ganegoda told TTG Asia.

New Sri Lankan president Anura Kumara Dissanayake wants the airline to be proudly owned by Sri Lankans

The previous government had invited bids to part-sell and manage the airline that as been suffering accumulated losses over the years.

While the airline has reported an operating profit for the period April 2022 to end March 2023, its accumulated debt is US$1.2 billion. Under the earlier plan, the government was to retain 51 per cent control of the airline while selling off the remaining 49 per cent to investors. Six parties, some who had no experience in running an airline, responded with an initial call for interest but none was pre-qualified for the next step of the process.

Left-leaning politician Anura Kumara Dissanayake from the National People’ Party won last month’s presidential election. He had vowed to stop the sale of state assets which the former regime was pursuing. Dissanayake swiftly dismantled a government unit tasked with the sale of loss-making state agencies including SriLankan Airlines.

Ganegoda said the airline is an important pillar of tourism and responsible for 50 per cent of the tourist traffic into the country. Sri Lanka aims to reach 2.3 million arrivals this year with a target of three million tourists next year and five million by 2030.

He said while the sale of the airline has been stopped, there are plans to restructure the airline under a viable business model. “Some structuring of our operations is needed to strengthen the balance sheet,” he added.

(ttgasia.com)

(This story, originally published by .ttgasia.com has not been edited by SLM staff)

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Adani decides to withdraw from wind energy project in SL

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Adani Green Energy has decided to withdraw from its proposed wind energy project in Mannar, Sri Lanka.
The company has conveyed this decision in a letter addressed to the chairman of Sri Lanka’s Board of Investment.

“It was learnt that another Cabinet appointed negotiations committee and Project Committee would be constituted to renegotiate the project proposal,” the company wrote in a letter, a copy of which was seen by Reuters, addressed to the chairman of Sri Lanka’s Board of Investment.

“This aspect was deliberated at the Board of our company and it was decided that while the company fully respects the sovereign rights of Sri Lanka and its choices, it would respectfully withdraw from the said project,” the letter added.

Adani Green Energy is a part of Indian billionaire Gautam Adani’s Adani Group.

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Coca-Cola says it may use more plastic due to Trump tariffs

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Coca-Cola may have to sell more drinks in plastic bottles in the US if President Donald Trump’s tariffs end up making aluminium cans more expensive, the company’s chief executive, James Quincey, said in a call with investors.

It comes after Trump ordered a 25% import tax on all steel and aluminium entering the US, which could end up driving up the price of canned food and drink items in the country.

In December, the beverage giant scaled down its sustainability target of using 50% recycled materials in its packaging by 2030, to using 35% to 40% by 2035.

Environmental groups have labelled Coca-Cola as the “top global plastic polluter” for six consecutive years.

“If one package suffers some increase in input costs, we continue to have other packaging offerings that will allow us to compete in the affordability space,” Quincey said.

“For example, if aluminium cans become more expensive, we can put more emphasis on PET [plastic] bottles”.

The Coca-Cola boss also sought to minimise the impact of the tariffs on his business saying packaging is only a relatively small component of his company’s costs.

In recent years, Coca-Cola had been selling more products in aluminium containers as part of its marketing and sustainability strategies.

Despite being generally more expensive, aluminium cans are also a lot more recyclable than plastic bottles over time.

The US imports almost half of the aluminium it uses, according to the United States Geological Survey, so a 25% tariff on all imports is likely to cause cans to become even more costly.

After Trump first ordered tariffs on steel in 2018, many can-makers won “exclusions” from those import taxes.

But this time, Trump has said there will be no exemptions from the rules either for individual products or for particular countries.

In a separate move that is likely to contribute to plastic pollution, Trump signed an executive order earlier this week ending a US government effort to replace plastic straws with paper.

The order reversed a measure signed by former President Joe Biden, who had called plastic pollution a “crisis”.

(BBC News)

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Litro Gas prices unchanged for February

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Channa Gunawardena, the Chairman of Litro Gas Company, has confirmed that the prices of domestic LP gas cylinders will remain unchanged for the month of February 2025.

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