Import restrictions on further 300 essential items to be lifted

Finance State Minister Ranjith Siyambalapitiya yesterday said the import restrictions on more than 300 essential items would be lifted soon.Since April 2022, Sri Lanka had slapped import restrictions on over 3,200 products, with the country’s foreign exchange buffers coming to near zero level. However, with the improvements in the domestic forex market, the government has been lifting these controls gradually.

For example, the import restrictions on 286 products were lifted in early June. With that, only 928 product types were subject to import restrictions.The debt standstill, which wasannounced in April 2022 and the import restrictions have largely helped both the rupee and country’s foreign reserves to gain. However, Sri Lanka is expected to gradually lift all the import restrictions, as per the conditions agreed with the International Monetary Fund.

Ranjith Siyambalapitiya