Archaic Customs laws to be replaced soon – Minister De Silva
Under new system disputes should be settled within 3 months
Huge taxes on ship ownership to be scrapped
The colloquial Customs laws will soon be removed and new amendments that match to the demands of today would be introduced within this year said Minister of Shipping and Aviation Nimal Siripala De Silva at the 7th Annual General Meeting of Sri Lanka Association of NVOCC Agents Sri Lanka Logistics and Freight Forwarders Association (SLANA) on Friday.
The Minister said that during a visit to the Customs he found some items that were not cleared for 20 years and the reason given was that it was pending legal action that was initiated by the Customs.
“Under the new system any dispute with Customs should be settled within three months and if there is an appeal it should be heard by a separate independent tribunal.” The Minister also said that several other steps would be taken to pay Customs transactions online.
Creating history as the first female to head SLANA, Swabha Wickramasinghe was elected as Chairperson and she succeeded Harsha De Silva and the Minister said that this was very timely.
“When I was the Minister of labour I had discussions with trade unions in the tea sector and though the female workforce is over 65% there was not a single women representation in the unions.”
Silva recalled that during the economic crisis the country could not even raise USD 10 million to clear fuel ships that were anchored in Colombo harbour for several days.
“But today there are nearly USD 5.5 billion reserves and the shipping sector too played a key role towards contributing to this increase.”
Sri Lanka enjoys a super geographical location in the world for the maritime sector but to take full advantage of this we should bring in more business to Sri Lanka.
“For this a good harbour network is needed and in addition to the government the private sector too is aggressively engaged in this.”
He opined that the Sri Lanka shipping sector badly needed ownership of ships. “But this is not happening since ship owners have to pay huge taxes for ship ownership.
“I have suggested to the government that these taxes should be taken off and have received a very positive response.”
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