Plans to have current account surplus after 2016

Sri Lanka hopes to have a current account surplus in the balance of payments after 2016, Central Bank Governor Nivard Cabraal said.  He said current revenues from the ruling administration's 'five hubs' concept will increase in the future with tourism, airport and port services, business process outsourcing revenues were set to increase.
Sri Lanka has a current account surplus partly because the capital account is partially closed for outward investments and because the government is a heavy borrower abroad. A capital account deficit country, or a country that builds up foreign reserves could have a current account surplus.

Packer to go ahead with Colombo casino project

The government has permitted Australian casino tycoon James Packer to continue with his project in Colombo after making changes to its original design, according to Colombo Page.
It quoted Investment Promotion Minister Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena as saying that work on Packer’s US$ 350 million project to set up an integrated resort which includes a 400-room hotel with gaming facilities will commence as planned on the land initially assigned for it on D. R. Wijewardene Mawatha, Colombo.

Bird's eye View of New Colombo Harbour

Bird's eye View of New Colombo Harbour

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Tech-addicted travelers ‘disconnect to reconnect’

Scott Sporleder/Camp Grounded

Participants in a recent "summer camp for adults" sponsored by Digital Detox happily gave up their personal electronics for four days of camp games, quiet time and actual face-to-face interaction.

There’s no need to call Drs. Drew, Oz or Phil, but if you’ve ever spent a vacation continuously checking your email, updating your status or Instagramming your meals, it may be time for an intervention.
The good news is that at a time when many travel companies have essentially become enablers — 4G! Free Wi-Fi! — a handful are encouraging guests to turn off their phones, stow their laptops and tablets and voluntarily embrace a technology-free “digital detox.”
“The fact that we can now carry a computer in our pocket that is more powerful than what was used to fly astronauts to the moon is amazing,” said Marsha Egan, life coach and author of “Inbox Detox and the Habit of E-Mail Excellence”. “The ability to be connected anywhere, anytime, 24/7, is both a blessing and a curse.”
It’s also, in many cases, self-induced. According to a May 2012 report from Google, 80 percent of smartphone owners never leave home without their device and 66 percent use them to access the Internet at least once a day.
Furthermore, 67 percent of cellphone owners find themselves checking their phone for messages, alerts, or calls — even when they don’t notice their phone ringing or vibrating, according to Pew Internet. Twenty-nine percent describe their phone as “something they can’t imagine living without."
'There was a little shock'
And social media only exacerbates the situation, says Levi Felix, founder of The Digital Detox (motto: Disconnect to Reconnect), which offers no-gadgets-allowed events and retreats in the San Francisco Bay area. “You post a picture or status update and then you get a beep or a buzz saying you got a ‘like’ or a retweet, so you go back to your phone. It’s a constant feedback loop and you get sucked in.”

Digital Detox

At Digital Detox, participants must give up their electronic tethers.

For Felix, who spent several years working in high-tech before burning out, the solution is to disconnect completely, albeit temporarily. To that end, participants in the company’s events surrender their phones, tablets, even their watches, upon arrival, opting instead for hikes, yoga sessions and other non-pixelated activities.
“We want to give people the opportunity to turn off their devices for a little while and re-evaluate what life is like when you’re not looking at a screen,” he said.
For Forest Bronzan, CEO of Email Aptitude, a San Francisco startup, that was exactly what he was looking for when he handed over his phone at the start of a Digital Detox retreat last summer.
“It’s one thing to say I’m going to take a day and try not to check email but at the camp, everybody is doing the same thing so it sort of forces you to unwind,” he said. “The first day, there was a little shock — wow, I’m not actually in front of a computer or my phone — but by the end, you just wanted to stay there.”
Root canal vs. working vacationWhile Digital Detox is about total disengagement, other companies take a less intensive approach. Seattle-based Via Yoga, for example, doesn’t forbid personal electronics during its week-long yoga and surfing retreat, but it does offer a 15-percent discount to guests who are willing to surrender their electronics for the duration of their stay.

“We suggest to everyone that they leave them at home so they have the time and space to enjoy their vacation,” said owner Susie Cavassa. “But it just seems harder and harder for people to unplug.”

Digital Detox

At Digital Detox events, attendees who want to share their thoughts are encouraged to type, not text.

One reason, of course, is that many people find it difficult to leave work behind.
“There’s this expectation about work today that we’re always connected,” said Ilene Philipson, a clinical psychologist and author of “Married to the Job.” “If they don’t check their email while they’re out of town, they come back to thousands of messages.”
In fact, according to a recent Harris Poll, 54 percent of respondents said that their employer expects them to work during vacations. Adding to the pain, so to speak: 51 percent said they would rather get a root canal than work on those vacations.
'No cellphones in the bedroom'“It seems employees are actually working harder when they're on vacation than when they're in the office," said Terrie Campbell, vice president of strategic marketing for Ricoh Americas Corp., which commissioned the survey. “They’re not able to disengage from their work either physically or mentally.”

Given the ubiquity of — and our increasing dependence on — digital devices, no one interviewed for this story suggests that people permanently disengage from technology. For those who can’t escape working while on vacation, Egan suggests setting aside specific times to do so rather than trying to multi-task during what is supposed to be family time.
And even proponents of total but temporary detox vacations insist they’re not anti-technology Luddites, but rather, hoping to gain insights that will help them navigate the work/life balance a bit better.
“For work, I’m much more cognizant of the need to recharge,” said Bronzan. “It may not be a digital detox twice a year but it’s taking an extra day a week and not be 100-percent consumed 24/7.
“On a personal note, my wife and I now have a ‘no cellphones in the bedroom’ rule.”

How economy and first class are growing even farther apart

Something is happening to on-board economy class, and it looks awfully familiar.
While airlines race to one-up the competition in their luxury or elite sections, their “cheap” seats have begun to resemble crowded bleachers at a football game.

Courtesy of Jet Airways

First class is getting swankier. Take the first-class suites aboard Jet Airways’ fleet of 777s, which offer passengers 26 square feet of private space.

Over the past 10 years, economy seating on major domestic flights has grown increasingly meager, with seat width, legroom and tilt shrinking by as much as a combined five inches. At the same time, airlines have phased out amenities like snacks, pillows, blankets and even eye shades.
But the front of the plane is increasingly luxurious. Delta, American and United Airlines have all sprung for spacious, lie-flat bed seats for their business-class customers. Even JetBlue, traditionally a budget carrier with a self-proclaimed “egalitarian” culture, gave in to class division when it announced an upcoming premium cabin with business-class seats and suites.
Ticket prices reflect that growing disparity. Whereas domestic first-class seats used to cost around four times more than economy fares, now they’re as much as 10 times the price of an economy ticket, analysts say. As both ends of the spectrum become more extreme, it’s all but impossible to find the middle ground we remember from years ago.
If this sounds a lot like the middle-class eulogies that flooded political speeches and media reports after the financial crisis, it’s because these trends are directly related to that wider economic reality.
After the economy crashed in 2008, airline passengers began to fall much more solidly into two distinct customer types, said Bijan Vasigh, a professor at the Business College at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. “Some are price sensitive, mainly interested in lowest ticket price, and the other group is service sensitive — they’re not really looking at cheapest price, but for comfort and amenities,” he said.
Though the recession deepened that trend, it did not create it. “Over the past 10 years, income has not increased uniformly,” Vasigh noted. “We’re seeing more lower income people, but for the service-sensitive the level of income has increased more than the average family.”
Since the profit margin for airlines is low on seats sold to the former group — those in the economy class — airlines have begun to rely more heavily on their price-blind customers.
In that process, they’re not only building up elite amenities, but also more heavily branding them. Offering space and comfort alone won’t distinguish the airlines from their peers, so they are focusing on the specific design and style of their elite seats in order to invite more brand loyalty.
Working with specialized interior aircraft design firms, the companies craft their elite cabins with excruciating attention to detail, said Anita Gittelson, an executive vice president at Wessco International, who designs and sells brand-name airline amenities.
“Mood lighting has become a very big thing on board,” she said. So has the choice of brand-specific ambient music, and even details like the type of fabric used on seats and carpets.
The wood-paneled parts of American Airlines first-class cabins, for example, aim to create a warm and familiar environment, Gittelson said, ostensibly to make passengers feel “at home.” On the other hand, the trance music and purple mood lighting on Virgin America seems to attempt a vibe more edgy than cozy.
Whichever mood they’re chasing, first- and business-class sections will likely become even more stylized — and expensive — in coming years. “Competing based on price is destructive for the industry,” Vasigh said. “The most important thing for the airlines is to distinguish their service in order to gain more loyalty.”

Savers are sexy: Why thriftiness is attractive

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Thrifty people are more attractive as potential mates, a researcher argues.

NEW YORK - In the world of dating, there is one common assumption: That a fancy car, a pricey dress, and a willingness to splurge are all things that will help you impress and snare your ideal partner.
"You would think that spending would be more attractive, because things like flashy watches or purses are so visible," says Jenny Olson, a PhD candidate at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business and co-author of the working paper, "A Penny Saved is a Partner Earned: The Romantic Appeal of Savers".
"Those things can also be perceived as wasteful and lacking in self-control," says Olson. "And self-control is a very desirable quality in a potential mate."
In fact, when Olson ran an experiment where participants had to evaluate dating profiles, savers were deemed the better catches. On a scale of 1-7, savers ranked roughly at 5 in terms of attractiveness, while spenders lagged behind at 4.
That jibes with similar findings elsewhere. New York Times money columnist Ron Lieber once asked the dating site eHarmony to dig through its 30 million matches made in July 2010, and found that users who labeled themselves as savers rather than spenders were contacted 25 percent more by potential mates.
So what is behind the allure of the Sexy Saver?
Allison Markin thinks she knows the answer. The wine-industry marketer from Penticton, British Columbia, has been dating a fine fellow for about nine months now.
He is a successful entrepreneur who has sold multiple businesses, and does not have to worry about money anymore. His inclination is still to save it - and that suits her just fine.
"I don't think anybody wants to be with someone who might blow through all their cash," says Markin, 41. "You don't have to constantly be worrying, 'What happens if they spent all their money?' So I would agree that savers are more attractive, when it comes to future planning."
And that is the critical distinction. Indeed, Olson's research has found that in the short term, savers do not have a big leg up over spenders in attractiveness. It is over the long term that the advantage really kicks in.
"If you are talking about a short-term fling, it does not really matter what your partner's spending habits are," says Olson. "But over the long term, it becomes a question of self-control: Can your potential partner take care of themselves and inhibit their bad impulses, in terms of money, of diet, of exercise? Those things matter."
Incidentally, the proof in the pudding is Olson herself. Her husband is a definite saver, she says.
"It is natural selection at play in choosing a mate," says Dr. Brad Klontz, co-author of Mind Over Money and a financial psychologist in Kauai, Hawaii. "Saving behaviors hint at the potential to create a more financially secure household unit. With that comes significant benefits to one's offspring and overall quality of life.
"Apparently, to our animal brain - which is focused on optimizing the chances of offspring survival and success - saving is sexy."
One caveat: Many people have to come to suspect this. And so they fudge the truth on their public profiles, making it difficult for daters to figure out what is true and what is not.
When Olson asked respondents to a private questionnaire whether they were savers or spenders, the split was an even 50/50. But when she asked those people to set up dating profiles, knowing the information would be public, a much higher percentage of people suddenly claimed they were savers.
"People have an intuition that saving is an attractive thing," she says. "Be careful that your potential partner might be lying about their financial attitudes - just like they might be lying about their height or weight."
Of course, do not go too far in the direction of saving, and become a maddening penny-pincher. While a general propensity for saving is an appealing thing to potential partners, being a tightwad definitely is not.
That is why Markin, the wine-industry marketer, would be okay if her partner surprised her with a trip to California's Napa Valley (hint, hint). "I like him to mix it up," she admits. "I do like that he is a saver. But the romantic side of me wishes he would splurge on me -- just a little bit."
Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters.