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The Importers and Consumer Affairs Committee of the National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka said that the increase of import duty on certain imports have positive and negative effects.

The Government increased the import duty on onions, green gram, cowpea, rice flour, sugar candy, finished electrical goods, intermediate finished goods, rods, television sets and solar power apparatus from March 4.

Bramwell Smith, the Chairman of the Importers and Consumer Affairs Committee of the National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka said that the increase of import duty on agricultural produce will help the local farmers to offer their products at competitive prices in the local market against the imported ones.

However, the committee pointed out that the reduction of import duty alone will not help the local farmer. There are other measures that should be taken to make agricultural produce more competitive. Introduction of high quality seeds and planting material, and introduction of high technology are some of the measures that must be followed. This will help to improve their quality and productivity. If not, duty increases will only be a burden to the consumer.

With regard to the increase of import duty of finished electrical goods, intermediate finished goods, rods, television sets, solar power apparatus the committee said that this will help to protect local industries. But it is important for Customs to effectively stop smuggling as it is reported that the normal tendency is to smuggle the goods into the country and under invoice values to escape high tariff. This is now said to be happening on a very large scale, Smith said.

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