COLOMBO: Sri Lanka can boost customs revenue by 700 billion rupees to 1,500 billion rupees a year by installing scanning machines and cutting room for undervaluing goods, Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake said.
He said only 800 billion rupees a year was collected from international trade now. But moves to install scanning machines was facing resistance, he said.
“We cannot let 1,200 person affect the future of Sri Lankan citizens,” he told an economic forum in Colombo organized by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce. Boosting revenues by 700 billion rupees (5.7 percent of gross domestic product) would eliminate Sri Lanka’s budget deficit expected in 2016.
Sri Lanka is focusing on a spending shortage of 491 billion rupees for 2016 (around 5.4 percent of total national output) in a reexamined spending plan concurred with the International Monetary Fund. In 2016, an amended spending plan concurred with the International Monetary Fund is focusing on 1,412 billion rupees in complete expense incomes and 134 billion rupees in non-charge incomes.
