Special Purpose Vehicle imports including milk bowsers suspended
View(s):The Government has cancelled permission given to import a number of Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) including tankers and milk bowsers with stainless steel tanks for the transportation of milk, a gazette notification issued by the Finance Ministry on June 11 revealed.
The permission given to import SPVs under the measures to ease import restrictions for companies registered under the Temporary Import and Export Processing Scheme has been repealed due to misuse of this facility, a senior Treasury official told the Business Times.
In the case of 947 freezer trucks imported earlier, it has emerged that in most of these trucks, the refrigerators are removed after importation and they are used as ordinary lorries to avoid taxes, the official said.
The move to ban these vehicles however will affect the transportation of milk and the industry will have to face a serious crisis of shortage of milk and related products, local producers complained.
Measures will be taken to reintroduce the permission of importation to such essential items shortly under a special methodology being devised by the Treasury, the official pointed out.
Sri Lanka Customs has been directed to release SPVs which are loaded on or before June 10, 2021, by charging a 50 percent penalty.
However several local milk producers who wished to remain anonymous noted that local fleet of milk tankers and bowsers is fairly old and some are not roadworthy.
Therefore the old fleet has to be replaced soon for the sustenance of the industry at a time where the government is making every effort to promote the local dairy industry curtailing milk powder imports to save much needed foreign currency. (BS)