- President Ranil Wickremesinghe meets Japanese PM Fumio Kishida: expresses appreciation for the support by Japan to SL to recover from the economic crisis: also says SL has made progress on debt restructuring and should conclude discussions by November, the latest.
- President Ranil Wickremesinghe meets Japanese Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki: talks focus on Sri Lanka’s debt restructuring and implementation of the IMF program: President also meets Singapore Deputy PM Lawrence Wong and re-affirms commitment to implement the Singapore Free Trade Agreement.
- Economist Steve Hanke’s Annual Misery Index 2022 ranks SL as the 11th most miserable country in the world; the index provides rankings for 157 countries, based on year-end unemployment, inflation, and bank-lending rates, and the annual percentage change in real GDP per capita: Zimbabwe ranked as ‘most miserable’ while others include Venezuela, Syria, Lebanon, Sudan, Argentina, Yemen, Ukraine, Cuba, Turkey, Haiti, Angola, Tonga & Ghana:
Switzerland emerges as ‘least miserable’. - The remains of late businessman Dinesh Schaffter were exhumed under judicial supervision at the Borella Cemetery.
- President Ranil Wickremesinghe apologizes to the Japanese Govt for the “unilateral cancellation” of the Japanese Govt loan of USD 1.5 bn to construct the Light Rail Transit project in Colombo: says there’s a need for legislation to ensure that large-scale bilateral projects cannot be canceled without mutual agreement.
- CB Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe says youth must try to become entrepreneurs instead of going overseas looking for greener pastures: over the past year, thousands of enterprises have crashed and over half a million persons rendered unemployed after the Central Bank under Weerasinghe increased interest rates to astronomical heights.
- State Minister for Finance Shehan Semasinghe says Sri Lanka plans to lift import controls on 100 items that were banned during forex shortages in the past 2 years, out of 3,000 denoted by HS codes.
- “Save the Children” quoting World Bank data, says children in Sri Lanka require critical life-saving support: says half a million jobs have been lost and 2.7 million additional people have fallen into poverty: also says 38% of families with children are unable to meet their basic food and education needs.
- Sinopec Fuel denies claims that it has hired external agencies or 3rd parties to handle its fuel station operations or related business activities: clarifies it has no intention to transfer any right of the license of fuel station supply to any other entity.
- Sprint sensation Yupun Abeykoon clocks 10.01 seconds to finish 2nd in the 100m finals at the Savona International meet in Italy: Reece Prescod of Britain comes 1st with 9.94 seconds.
