Import restrictions imposed on 78 items relaxed

• Apparel, tiles, air conditioning, refrigerators, freezers, washing machines, lamps, lighting fittings and equipment for general physical exercise relaxed

by darshana sanjeewa balasuriya

The government has relaxed the restrictions imposed on several items through a Gazette Extraordinary. President Ranil Wickremesinghe as the Minister of Finance, Economic Stabilization and National Policies has signed the Gazette Extraordinary dated on 23rd November 2022.   

Accordingly, the import restriction on several items including Trunks, suit-cases, vanity-cases,executive-cases, brief-cases, school satchels, apparel, clothing accessories, tiles, air conditioning machines, refrigerators, freezers, household or laundry-type washing machines, electric instantaneous lamps and lighting fittings, and equipment for general physical exercise, gymnastics, athletics, other sports will be relaxed.   

Also, fibreboard of wood or other ligneous materials, synthetic textile materials, slag wool, rock wool and similar mineral, padlocks and locks, electro-thermic appliances and reception apparatus for radio broadcasting has also been relaxed.    

Meanwhile, State Minister of Finance Ranjith Siyambalapitiya said that the government has decided to lift the ban on the import of 78 items with effect from midnight yesterday.   
He said the government has stopped the import of 1,468 items due to the foreign exchange crisis, effective from August 23 this year.  

However, after considering the request received from various parties, the government took steps to remove the import ban on 708 items on September 9.