{"id":95686,"date":"2019-11-27T12:42:59","date_gmt":"2019-11-27T19:42:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=95686"},"modified":"2019-11-27T12:43:34","modified_gmt":"2019-11-27T19:43:34","slug":"sri-lankan-shares-rupee-gain-ahead-of-tax-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/11\/27\/sri-lankan-shares-rupee-gain-ahead-of-tax-cuts\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lankan shares, rupee gain ahead of tax cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><em><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Courtesy Reuters<\/span><\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>COLOMBO, Nov 27 (Reuters) &#8211; Sri\n Lankan shares ended higher on Wednesday, helped by gains in beverage \nand banking shares, while the rupee ended firmer on hopes of tax cuts by\n the new government. ** After the market closed, Cabinet Spokesman \nBandula Gunawardana said the government has decided to reduce \nvalue-added tax to 8% from 15% with effect from Dec. 1. ** Sri Lanka\u2019s \ncentral bank is likely to leave its key interest rates on hold at a \npolicy review on Friday, a Reuters poll indicated, while it waits for \nthe new government\u2019s economic policies after the election of a president\n on Nov. 16. ** The benchmark stock index ended up 0.39% at 6,118.87, \nfurther moving away from its lowest close since Nov. 15 hit on Monday. \nThe bourse gained 1.6% last week, and is up 1.10% for the year. ** \nAnalysts said investors are awaiting for some policy directions from the\n country\u2019s newly elected president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>** The \nrupee ended 0.39% firmer at 180.80\/181.10 per dollar, compared to \nTuesday\u2019s close of 181.50\/90, Refinitiv data showed. It is up 0.6% so \nfar this year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>** Foreign investors were net sellers for 22 sessions in 24. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>**\n They sold a net 176.7 million Sri Lankan rupees ($981,667) worth of \nshares on Wednesday, extending the net selling so far this year to 9.45 \nbillion rupees worth of equities, according to index data. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>**\n Equity market turnover was 1.3 billion rupees, more than this year\u2019s \ndaily average of about 711.6 million rupees. Last year\u2019s daily average \nwas 834 million rupees. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>** Meanwhile, foreign \ninvestors were net buyers of government securities on a net basis for \nthe fifth straight week, purchasing a net 0.21 million rupees worth of \ngovernment securities in the week ended Nov. 20. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>** Total foreign outflows from government securities through Nov. 20 stood at 48 billion rupees, central bank data said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>**\n For a report on global markets, click ** For a report on major \ncurrencies, click ($1 = 180.0000 Sri Lankan rupees) (Reporting by Ranga \nSirilal and Shihar Aneez; Editing by Maju Samuel)Our Standards:<a href=\"http:\/\/thomsonreuters.com\/en\/about-us\/trust-principles.html\">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy Reuters COLOMBO, Nov 27 (Reuters) &#8211; Sri Lankan shares ended higher on Wednesday, helped by gains in beverage and banking shares, while the rupee ended firmer on hopes of tax cuts by the new government. ** After the market closed, Cabinet Spokesman Bandula Gunawardana said the government has decided to reduce value-added tax to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95686\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}