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Tourist service providers hit by the non-essentials import ban

18 Mar 2022

  • Many commodities have to be imported to operate
  • Items range from linen and crockery to certain fruits
    BY Buddhika Samaraweera The Inter-Company Employees’ Union’s Hotel Workers’ Centre (HWC) claimed that the Government’s decision to impose restrictions on the importation of more than 300 non-essential items has made it impossible to maintain places that are providing services for tourists.  HWC National Organiser Jayathilaka Ranasinghe said that much of the commodities that are needed for tourist hotels and restaurants are usually imported. He added that the Government should have thought twice before taking this decision which directly affects the foreign exchange earnings. “Tourist hotels and all similar places need a variety of items such as linen, crockery, and fruits that cannot be grown locally. In order to provide a quality service to foreigners, such commodities are essential. However, the hotels and other such places are now in a position that they can’t maintain their establishments due to recently imposed restrictions on imports,” he claimed. Given the serious deficit of US dollar reserves in the country, a gazette notification restricting the imports of a total of 367 non-essential items without a valid licence was issued on 9 March. Through it, the import of products such as fish fillets, other fish-based meat, milk, cream, buttermilk, curdled milk, yoghurt, butter, other fats and oils derived from milk, dairy spreads, cheese, curd, grapes, apples, pears, and chocolate have been restricted. Meanwhile, the HWC recently pointed out that the tourist hotel industry, which has seen a great decline over the recent past due to the Easter Sunday terror attacks of 21 April 2019 and the Covid-19 pandemic, is further collapsing due to the ongoing scheduled power cuts.  


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