President Ranil Wickremesinghe today announced several proposals to promote the use of electric cars locally as well as assembling them and to promote the production of electricity using renewable energy and to encourage the local production of related solar panels.

Delivering the 2023 budget speech in parliament today, he proposed to remove the Port and Airport Development Levy and Social Security Levy on solar panels used to produce solar energy under the combined classification code 8541.10 and inverters under the combined classification code 8504.40 which are currently under taxation on imports, with effect from January 01, 2023. 

He also said that necessary incentives will be provided to promote the use of electric cars locally as well as assembling them. 

Accordingly, Social Security Contribution Levy will be waived only for organizations that assemble motor vehicles and add at least 25% local value and produce the required parts locally, he said.

He said the Ministry of Industry should coordinate with all registered electric vehicle component manufacturers and approved local electric vehicle assemblers to ensure local value addition and use of locally produced electric vehicle components for the development of the local electric vehicle component manufacturing industry.

The President proposed to establish a communication technology system for this purpose under the Ministry of Industry.

The proposed information system should ensure automatically the value of locally sourced car components and the percentage of local value addition of the cars being assembled by every electric car assembly company for tariff concessions, he said. 

This computerized information exchange system shall be developed and maintained by the Ministry of Industries, the President emphasized.

Wickremesinghe further added that actions will be taken to provide solar panels to religious places with the assistance from foreign sources and the government.