Tag Archive for 'economic growth'


LIRNEasia’s Mobile Benchmarks (South Asia and Southeast Asia) and Broadband Benchmarks Report for October 2008 has been released. Click HERE for more information.




Sri Lanka: Telecom’s contribution to economic growth and the impact of taxes

Government has released the 2008 second quarter economic performance data, which shows, again, that the telecom sector is growing the fastest, at 23.2 per cent (as against 21 per cent, 2007 Q2), followed by mining and quarrying at 19.6 per cent.

In his weekly newspaper column in the Lankadeepa, Mr Udaya Gammanpila, the Chairman of the Central Environmental Authority and the main proponent of mobile-specific taxes, has posed the question to me why the mobile sector keeps growing even as they keep loading taxes on it.   For example, the mobile subscriber levy of 10 percent of every bill was in effect in 2008 Q2.  Possibly, the 10 per cent levy on CDMA “fixed” phones was also in effect for at least part of 2008 Q2.  Yet,…

Poor economy and taxes begin to bite in Sri Lanka

Hutch, a pure BOP play that was making very good profits, has reported declining profits and revenue growth.  One quarter does not a trend make.  But seen together with Dialog’s bad results for the last quarter, it suggests things are not looking good for the telecom sector which is taking multiple hits with tripled spectrum charges, revenue-raising taxes in the name of the environment and all sorts of additional costs imposed in the name of national security.

If the government keeps taking JHU advice, they are likely to make the economy slow to a crawl.