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The Cabinet will sign part two of the COVAX agreement with the World Health Organisation (WHO) this week, enabling the country to obtain a limited quantity of the COVID-19 vaccine in the first quarter of this year.

The relevant gazette notification will be issued by the Finance Ministry sometime this week on the directions of the President’s Secretary Dr. P.B. Jayasundera.

He has already announced only some ‘big-ticket items’ such as motor vehicles are prohibited from being imported for a further period. Earlier it was planned to extend the restrictions for only three months but the decision was reversed to six months on Thursday evening, the sources said.

Import restrictions will further slowdown Sri Lanka’s battered economic growth prospects hurting businesses that rely on imports, several economic experts said.

They added that it would affect production and jack up the price of goods while allowing domestic production chains to sustain themselves disrespecting consumer choice.

In the very short run, Sri Lanka has no other alternative other than going for import controls, eminent economist Dr. W.A. Wijewardena said adding that the country ideally should not exceed this ‘short’ period of controls.

Sumanasiri Liyanage, retired Professor in Political Economics at the University of Peradeniya, warned that a small group of corporate élites will grab benefits from the production-oriented strategy of restricting imports making the poor poorest due to loss of livelihoods during COVID-19.

The new production-oriented strategy unveiled in budget 2021 is likely to push the country back to the 1970s closed economic era in order to ‘save foreign exchange’, economists said.

Sri Lanka’s transformation into a production-oriented market economy with import restrictions will be leading the country towards the emergence of a separate domestic capitalist class.

According to Central Bank statistics, imported consumer goods amount only to 19.8 per cent of total imports, while 57 per cent of imports are intermediate goods for production.

Therefore local manufacturers are already starting to experience the adverse effects of the import controls.

“These import restrictions are also exerting an impact on the consumer durables market,” Singer Group CEO Mahesh Wijewardene told shareholders in the company’s latest annual report.

Several building material manufacturers in steel, tiles, aluminum are exploiting the people with overpriced goods. The main problem now is that while the people are paying high prices under cover of the tax and import restrictions, the money is not going to the government coffers but to the pockets of the few selected businessmen with ruling party connections, economists said.

The tax on readymade garment imports will be increased from April in addition to existing import restrictions on textiles, official sources said.

Economists said that several protectionist measures in the hope of saving foreign exchange were irrational in the current global and regional economic conditions.

This is because the market monopoly creation instead of market competition is misguided protectionist policy.

"Back then, it was the bond scam. Now, it is from tax frauds. We ask the masses to rally against these government backed crony capitalists," Samarasinghe said.

Sri Lanka faces the danger of a new coronavirus variant entering the country as the government has allowed the foreign tourists to return to the country, a senior epidemiologist warned on Tuesday.

“We will take steps to ban groups that are drawn to extremist activities,” Weerasekara told reporters.

He noted that Russian ambassador to Sri Lanka Yuri Materiy had agreed to support Sri Lanka’s efforts in this regard.

“All countries must join hands to eliminate racism and extremism by exchanging intelligence information,” the public security state minister insisted.

Sri Lanka is currently exploring the possibility of purchasing military equipment from Moscow, Russian Ambassador to Colombo, Yury Materiy has said in an interview with RIA Novosti.

Speaking to the RIA Novosti on the occasion for the Diplomatic Worker’s Day, the Ambassador said Military-technical cooperation between Russia and Sri Lanka has been steadily developing over the years.

During his recent visit to Sri Lanka, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced Moscow’s readiness to continue to supply the island with the weapons necessary to ensure its defense capability and maintain the country's security.

The Russian Ambassador to Sri Lanka has warned the island nation to be wary of terror financing coming in the guise of Covid-19 aid.

News reports quoted Materiy as saying: "Many extremist groups have been moving funds for terror activities and have additionally carried out such operations via the trade and trafficking of narcotics under the cover of humanitarian assistance for Muslim organisations and charities."

Russia also plans to provide Sri Lanka with the Sputnik vaccine as the ministries of health of the two nations have completed formalities for its distribution.

The two also discussed mutual cooperation between the countries related to trade which has gone up substantially despite the coronavirus pandemic.

The Russian ambassador also invited the minister to participate in international security forums being held in Russia in 2021.

“A positive PCR found post-mortem does not necessarily mean that the dead body is infectious,” the SLMA said in a statement.

It added that the COVID-19 virus can be transmitted only by the respiratory route.

“The virus itself can thrive only inside a living cell. It is unlikely that it could remain infectious within a dead body for any significant period of time,” the statement read.

The SLMA also dismissed concerns raised on the burial of humans citing environmental issues that arose due to the massive burial of minks culled in Denmark.

“The reported planned exhumation and cremation of a large number of minks culled in Denmark was not due to any possible contamination of water resources by the virus,” the statement read.

“It was due to a large amount of nitrogenous waste from these decomposing mink carcasses contaminating the nearby water sources and polluting the environment”.

The SLMA pointed out that the burial of corpses had been practised even in the case of severe waterborne diseases like Cholera.