In the wake of the continuous soft-peg crisis, Sri Lanka has temporarily discontinued the import of more than 300 non-essential Items starting on Wednesday. It was inscribed by President Ranil Wickremesinghe in his capacity as Finance Minister the gazette was released according to the Import and Export Control Act.
The list of items contained cosmetics, electrical goods, watercraft, ships, aircraft, electrical and electronic goods, and building materials. It also contained chocolate and other food products such as
cocoa, condensed milk, yogurt, coconuts, coconut yoghurt, and arrack made of coconut, rose’s perfumes, etc.
However, the goods in the suspended list which were shipped on or before August 23 and reached any seaports or airports in Sri Lanka on or before September 14 would be permitted for customs clearance.
With dried-up gross official reserves limited to $1.8 billion at the end of July, the country failed to make interest charges on the loans and defaulted on the debt of $51 billion in May.
The country's Central Bank declared that negotiations with the IMF towards reaching a staff-level agreement on the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) arrangement are planned in the coming weeks, while expeditious actions are being taken to advance the debt restructuring process with the aid of financial and legal advisors.