June 10, Colombo: The State Minister of Finance Dr. Ranjith Siyambalapitiya says that the Customs Act will be amended so that goods detained at the Customs due to various legal issues can be released on bail during court proceedings.

The Minister points out that due to various judicial actions, more than 600 vehicles and many goods have been detained by the Customs.

Mr. Siyambalapitiya made these disclosures in the Parliament yesterday (09) while answering the questions presented for oral answers.

Speaking further, the Minister said that between 2015 and 2020, 2,498,714 vehicles have been imported into Sri Lanka.

The Minister pointed out that when that number is divided by the remaining 13.6 million people after excluding the 13% of the population that are children and 5% of the over 70 year old population, one person for every five people has imported a vehicle.

These imports have been made under 100 companies from 68 countries. Pointing out that the value of imported vehicles during this period is 1331.51 billion rupees, the minister mentioned that the government has collected a tax amount of 991.12 billion rupees.

Meanwhile, the Minister said that a proposal will be made to prepare a system where all the payments made in the importation of vehicles can be paid in the country where the respective vehicle was imported from.

The Minister mentioned that a report on raising tax revenue and saving the foreign exchange is currently being prepared and the related proposal is ready to be included.