President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih has stated that regional ports are benefiting from the reduction of the import duty. He made the remarks while speaking at the function to commemorate the 132nd anniversary of the Maldives Customs Service.
Speaking at the ceremony, President Solih highlighted that goods worth over USD37 million were imported in to the Maldives last year as a result of reducing the import duty in 2020. The president expressed gratitude to employees at Customs for giving their full support to implementing the change.
Additionally, President Solih said major changes are being made to Customs and more changes will be made in the future as part of the expansion of its services. He said that decentralisation is a key priority of the government and that Customs plays a huge role in this initiative. As such, he noted that employees of Customs are carrying out important work as more regional ports are being developed.
There are currently two regional ports in the Maldives, which are the Addu Port and the Kulhudhuffushi Regional Port. In 2020, the Parliament of the Maldives passed an amendment bill to the Import-Export Act to reduce the import duty from items brought to regional ports by 50%. The amendment bill was passed with the objective of reducing import duty on items brought for the development of certain sectors, as part of efforts to increase production. Another objective of the bill was to discourage the use of items with health hazards, by increasing the import duty on such items. As such, the bill includes an amendment to increase import duty of cigarettes and alternatives to tobacco.