Keeping in mind the importance of ensuring hygiene among women and school girls and making hygiene products more affordable, the government has taken steps to remove all taxes imposed on 05 key imported ingredients for domestically produced sanitary napkins.
It has also been decided to provide tax concessions for imported sanitary napkins.
Accordingly, with these tax concessions, the price of a pack of 10 sanitary napkins produced locally will decrease by 50-60 rupees and its maximum retail price will be 260-270 rupees. And consumer retail prices of imported finished products are also going to decrease by 18% or 19%.
According to the instructions of President Ranil Wickramasinghe, the government authorities are taking necessary steps to provide tax concessions. At the time of importing these raw materials, the manufacturers should get the recommendations of the Secretary of the Ministry of Industry to get the relevant tax concessions, and the program for that has also been prepared.
Accordingly, customs import duty of 15%, cess duty of 10%-15% and port and airport development tax (PAL) of 10% on import of 05 raw materials and intermediate goods have been removed. Domestically manufactured sanitary napkins are given zero rate of VAT. Importers of finished sanitary napkins also get the benefit of zero rate VAT.
All these benefits are provided with effect for the crisis period.
The domestic manufacturers had recently requested the government to reduce the taxes due to the increase in the price of sanitary napkins due to the taxes levied on the import of raw materials for sanitary napkins.
Sajith’s speech in Parliament on this
Today President’s directive on tax
