Finance Ministry to present criteria for importing motor vehicles in coming days

The Ministry of Finance is set to present the criteria for importing motor vehicles into the country in the coming days.

This was revealed during a panel discussion on ‘Sri Lanka’s Motor Vehicle Industry and Outlook for 2024’, held in Colombo recently on the impact on the financial sector of allowing the import of vehicles into the country with the participation of financial and economic experts, vehicle importers, bank and financial sector officials and other stakeholders interested in vehicle imports.

The forum focused attention on Sri Lanka vehicle import trends, economic variables and policy implementation on the future of leasing.

The Central Bank of Sri Lanka has informed the Ministry of Finance to import vehicles worth one billion dollars from the country’s foreign reserves in 2025. Accordingly, the Ministry and the Cabinet will decide the amount of tax to be levied on vehicles in order to increase state revenue.

The import of motor vehicles into the country had to be stopped because the country’s foreign exchange earnings had decreased and the import cost had increased unbearably. However, in order to strengthen the country’s economy at present, vehicle imports must be started.

The discussion revealed that there is a need to import new vehicles as the country currently has vehicles imported five years ago, and their maintenance also requires a lot of money, hence it is necessary to import new vehicles.

The panel discussion noted that although the country’s foreign reserves are still not at a good level, the amount of foreign reserves should be increased gradually parallel to allowing vehicle imports.

Furthermore, it had studied how much can be allocated for vehicle imports without compromising the target of increasing foreign reserves in the next two years and accordingly, it had provided forecasts to the Ministry of Finance regarding the import of one billion dollars of vehicles this year. It is possible to gradually increase foreign reserves in the coming years and that importing one billion dollars of vehicles will not hinder the increase in reserves and the gradual advancement of the exchange rate.

The current amount of foreign reserves is US $ 6.8 billion.  However, the general opinion of the panel discussion was that it is appropriate to resume vehicle imports for the development of the financial and banking sectors.  It was also revealed that a large number of direct and indirect jobs will be created with the resumption of vehicle imports.

The post Finance Ministry to present criteria for importing motor vehicles in coming days appeared first on DailyNews.