COLOMBO: Sri Lankan shares closed higher on Wednesday, as gains in information technology and utilities helped boost the index.
The CSE All-Share index rose 0.76 percent to 20,775.42.
Industrial Asphalts (Ceylon) and Muller & Phipps (Ceylon) were the top percentage gainers on the index, up 25 percent and 18.8 percent, respectively.
Sri Lanka resumed construction of a stalled highway project that links the hub of Colombo with Kandy city in the central highlands with a new USD500 million Chinese loan on Wednesday. The loan is the first funding from its largest bilateral creditor since the island nation defaulted on its foreign debt three years ago. Trading volume on the index rose to 238.8 million shares from 203.2 million shares in the previous session.