Import of Non-Essential Items Restricted

The import of the following goods (44 items in total) have been restricted in order to control excessive credit growth:

Palm Oil
Chocolates
Bread, pastry, cakes, biscuits and other bakers' wares
Beer
Wine, vermouth and other fermented beverages

Spirits, liqueurs and other spirituous beverages
Perfumes and toilet waters
Beauty or make up preparations (lip, eye, manicure, pedicure etc)
Preparations for use on hair
Pre-shave, shaving or after-shave preparations, personal deodorants and anti-perspirants,

Perfumed bath salts and other bath preparations,

Preparations for perfuming or deodorising rooms

Soap and organic surface-active products
Tableware, kitchenware, other household articles and toilet articles of plastics
Articles of apparel of knitted or crocheted
Footwear
Artificial flowers

Walltiles, floortiles and the like
Tableware, kitchenware, other household articles and toilet articles of ceramic, porcelain or china
Statuettes and other ornamental ceramic articles
Glassware of a kind used for table, kitchen, toilet, office, indoor decoration or similar purposes
Imitation jewellery

Tableware, kitchenware, other household articles of stainless steel
Locks and padlocks
Fans
Air conditioners
Refrigerators, freezers and other refrigerating and freezing equipment

Dish washing machines
Household and laundry type washing machines
Electro-mechanical domestic appliances, with self-contained electric motor (eg: vacuum cleaners, floor polishers, food grinders, mixers, blenders etc)
Shavers, hair clippers and hair-removing appliances with self contained electric motor
Electric instantaneous or storage water heaters and immersion heaters

Hair dryers and other hair-dressing apparatus
Electric smoothing irons
Microwave ovens
Other ovens and cookers
Coffee or tea makers

Toasters
Video recording or reproducing apparatus, whether or not incorporating a video tuner
Television
Antennas
Filament bulbs and energy efficient compact fluorescent lamps and other lamps
Wrist watches and clocks
Lamps and light fittings
Toys

(Source: Central Bank of Sri Lanka)

There's going to be a reduction in the availability of deodorant and after-shave??!! WHAT??!! I don't get these people - the above items are taboo but importing twenty vehicles with V8 engines is fine??

Read more at LBO

UPDATE 10/24 - Excellent post by Rohan Samarajiva on the import restrictions at LBO