The Ministry of Agriculture has decided to establish a mandarin orange cultivation zone in the districts of Kandy, Nuwara Eliya and Badulla.

Although oranges are already cultivated in these areas, there is a high demand among locals for imported mandarins which leads to the loss of significantly high cost.

With tests proving to be successful, it has now been decided to take measures to provide funding to locally cultivate mandarins.

Minister of Agriculture – Mahinda Amaraweera has instructed ministry officials to take measures to establish mandarin cultivations within this year itself.

SriLankan Airlines is expecting passenger traffic to surpass pre-pandemic levels by year-end during its peak travel period, thanks to a boom in tourism.

In an interview with Channel News Asia (CNA), Nuttall said that he expected a ‘stronger outlook’ for next year, with matters gradually returning to normalcy in terms of the country’s economy and its tourist arrivals.

“Assuming that the world stays the same for the year ahead, which we expect, and the Sri Lankan economy is rebounding, tourism is coming back, we’re forecasting perhaps a 50 million profit next year”, he said in this regard.

The government has decided to abolish the existing Simplified Value Added Tax (SVAT) system with effect from January 1, 2024.

Accordingly, the proposal submitted to the Cabinet to give instructions to draft laws to prepare a bill to amend the relevant provisions of the Value Added Tax (VAT) Act has been approved.

The Government Information Department said that two major reforms regarding Value Added Tax should be introduced in accordance with the International Monetary Fund’s Extended Funding Facility (EFF).

Accordingly, the government said the VAT system should be reformed by removing the majority of exemptions and the SVAT system should be abolished.

Approximately 1.2% of the gross domestic product from the tax income can be increased by reactivating the logic of the existing release of VAT.