The Finance Ministry is currently involved in a special study of the procedures to issue duty free vehicle permits to Sri Lankans working overseas and remitting valuable foreign exchange to the country as proposed through the 2015 Budget proposals as a mark of gratitude for their services.

The Budget has proposed that overseas workers could purchase a vehicle duty free to the value of 60 per cent of their remittances to Sri Lanka.

When adaderanabiz.lk tried to find out the details of this procedure, it was revealed that the Finance Ministry was already in the process of examining several aspects to implement this proposal.

The attention of the Finance Ministry has been drawn to whether this duty free concession is valid retrospectively so as to cover those who have remitted foreign exchange to Sri Lanka in the past as well or whether this concession is valid only after a certain period.

Meanwhile, the Ministry’s attention is also focused on whether this concession is limited to a certain ceiling of foreign exchange remittances and also towards implementing this proposal at the earliest.

Sri Lankan overseas workers have remitted USD 548 million to Sri Lanka in August which is an increase of 1.5 per cent when compared to August 2013.

During the first eight months of this year, Sri Lankans employed overseas have remitted USD 4.5 billion as foreign exchange to the country, which is an increase of 10 per cent when compared to last year.