The government has taken steps to remove import restrictions on 10 more types of goods.
Minister of State for Finance Dr. Ranjith Siyambalapitiya says that restrictions have been removed on the types of goods related to tourism, defense and sports.
These include energy drinks for the tourism industry, CCTV equipment, MDF for furniture and sports equipment.
This is the third time that import restrictions have been eased.
“The government took steps to limit import expenses as a solution to the foreign exchange problem facing the country. In 2020, the import cost was shown as 16055 million dollars. It was seen as 20637 million dollars in 2021. On August 23, 2022, the government decided to restrict the import of 1465 items. Accordingly, 1211 million dollars were saved in the period of three months since the imposition of import restrictions until November 23. Let us consider this amount comparatively.
We have spent 1666.5 million dollars on food and beverage imports in 2021. 882.5 million dollars were spent on medicines. During the period of having long fuel queues, we spent 3742.9 million dollars on fuel. 158.2 million dollars have been allocated for fertilizers,” said the minister.
The government decided to relax the restrictions on three occasions since the restriction of the import of goods on the requests of the Chamber of Commerce, the entrepreneurs of the industrial sector, the board of investment and so on.
Accordingly, restrictions were lifted on 708 items on September 9, 77 items on November 23, and 10 items on December 19.The minister further said that a formal follow-up will be done on importing the goods for which the import restrictions are relaxed.