The Ministry of Finance is to present a time-bound programme on relaxing import restrictions to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) by the end of this month (June), The Daily Morning learnt.

Speaking to The Daily Morning yesterday (7), State Minister of Finance Shehan Semasinghe told that the Ministry expects to relax the import restrictions that have been imposed on around 100 harmonised system (HS) codes. However, Semasinghe also said that he is not capable of speaking about the types of products that they expect to relax restrictions on. “We are still finalising the matter. But hopefully, we expect to relax import restrictions on 100 HS codes. The only thing is that we cannot talk about the names of the products that we are looking at, because it is not suitable to divulge the information since no final decision has been made. Anyway, by the end of this month, we hope to present a time-bound import restrictions relaxation programme to the IMF,” he said.

Meanwhile, State Finance Minister Ranjith Siyambalapitiya had said recently that import restrictions on around 300 to 400 products will be relaxed by next week.

The import of over 300 items was temporarily suspended last year (2022), under the Imports and Exports (Control) Act through a Government notification by the Ministry. It temporarily suspended the importation of items listed under 305 HS Codes, effective from 23 August, 2022, until further notice.