Finance State Minister Dr. Ranjith Siyambalapitiya told Parliament yesterday that the import restrictions on another 300 items will be eased at the end of this week.
He also said that the list of restricted imports of items have been reduced to 1216 right now.
He was speaking during the adjournment debate on issues faced by the Industrial Sector of Sri Lanka including Small and Medium Scale Enterprises. He said that the government implemented various decisions to get rid of the economic crisis and the small and medium-scale entrepreneurs were further inconvenienced by those decisions taken for the welfare of the majority of the people.
He further said that the government has taken measures to raise the import limits, introduce new taxes and increase the interest rates in order to raise the state revenue as well as protect the foreign reserves.
The results of the decisions taken by the government are already being received. The amount of foreign remittances has increased. The amount of remittances has increased up to US$ 45.4 million for last April compared to US$ 24.9 million received April in last year. Inflation has reduced from 70 percent to 25.5 percent The amount of foreign reserves has increased to US$ 3 billion. Bank interest rates have also been lowered by 2.5 percent. At a time when people are getting the results of all this, we have taken measures to remove the import restrictions on the materials required for small and medium enterprises for their production activities.
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