COLOMBO – Sri Lanka will soon announce relaxing vehicle imports, subject to certain constraints, Minister of Health and Media, and Cabinet spokesman Nalinda Jayatissa said.
“The decision on vehicle imports was made after taking into account the economic situation, our economic targets, our reserves and with the close supervision of the Ministry of Finance,” Jayatissa told reporters in Colombo Tuesday (10), explaining that the relaxation of vehicle imports should be understood in the context of those limits.
Urging unnamed sources not to give various messages and mislead the public, he said the types of vehicles that will be allowed to be imported will be announced by the finance ministry soon. “I am again saying that import controls will be relaxed under some limits,” he stressed.
Minister Jayatissa was responding to a question on advertisements by vehicle importers and deposits already collected.
Banning imports, especially those which bring high taxes, after printing money to target a policy rate, has been described as a ‘cascading policy error’ by critics. Bans on highly taxed imports reduce state revenues, pushing up interest rates as the borrowing requirement goes up, requiring more money to target the policy rate.
Sri Lanka banned the import of vehicles along with 3000 other items amid the economic crisis in 2020. However, forex shortages and an external default happened anyway as the printed money to target a policy rate flowed into other imports, especially, building materials and capital equipment, and the central bank re-financed loans went to areas that were not controlled.
Restrictions were also placed in 2018 with LC margins pushed to 200% as money was printed to target policy rates even as budget deficits were brought down with higher taxes.
A central bank with a policy rate that spends reserves without allowing market rates to rise (sterilizes interventions with open market operations) eventually runs out of reserves and the exchange rate also collapses.
Neither floating exchange rate nor consistent hard pegs use central bank reserves for private imports or sterilize reserve outflows.
-economynext.com
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