Small chemical importers and blenders that buy stock in foreign currency while running on short-term credit face higher compliance and cash-flow risks under Sri Lanka’s new import payment monitoring rules, according to a SenFin Securities report on listed companies, Hiru News reported.

The report assesses Imports and Exports (Control) Regulations No. 06 of 2026, issued under Gazette Extraordinary 2493/39 and in force since 19 June 2026.

Businesses with high import volumes, thin margins and short-term credit exposure are likely to feel it most, the report says, because their inventories depend heavily on short-term financing. Exporters and companies with stronger cash positions should be less affected.

Who is exposed

SenFin reviewed nine Colombo Stock Exchange-listed companies and placed five in its higher-risk category on a comparative exposure matrix:

Smaller importers and blenders with limited pricing power are particularly exposed, the report says, because they buy inventory in foreign currency and finance it on short-term credit — so payment monitoring requirements feed directly into their working-capital cycle.

CIC Holdings PLC and Hemas Holdings PLC were cited as diversified groups whose agri-inputs and cosmetics businesses are exposed, but where earnings from other segments should cushion the effect on group results. Existing compliance teams, established banking relationships and buffer stocks, the report says, let such companies absorb the extra administrative burden without the same pressure on margins.

Hayleys PLC (HAYL) and its subsidiary Haycarb PLC (HAYC) were placed among the least exposed. SenFin called Hayleys the most diversified company in the review, with export earnings providing a natural offset against its foreign-currency import payments, so any impact would show at business-unit level rather than across the group.

One company comes out ahead

Haycarb is classed as a “relative beneficiary” on two counts. It exports activated carbon, so it earns foreign currency rather than mainly spending it — a position the report says works in its favour under tighter payment requirements.

Separately, SenFin points to the hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HCFC) ban brought in under Imports and Exports (Control) Regulations No. 04 of 2026. As companies move off HCFC-based systems, the phase-out could lift demand for Haycarb’s filtration carbon, which is used in the substitute refrigerant and solvent systems expected to replace them. Haycarb was both the least import-exposed of the nine companies reviewed and the only one identified as standing to gain.

What changed in June

The regulations SenFin is assessing are the ones Sri Lanka brought in on 19 June. Signed by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake as Finance Minister, they require commercial banks to assign a unique identification number to every import-related remittance and pass transaction-level detail to Sri Lanka Customs at the time of payment — including the importer’s TIN, both parties’ addresses, the beneficiary’s account and branch codes, payment and delivery terms, the proforma invoice number and a goods description. Importers wanting to make advance payments must pre-register with Customs first, and banks may not process advance payments without that registration.

The Government framed the measure as a transparency and anti-misuse step, aimed at stopping advance payments being used to inflate import bills or move money offshore without a matching shipment, and a Deputy Finance Minister said at the time it was not intended to restrict trade. This report is the first independent assessment we have seen of how the regime is landing on individual businesses three months on — and it does not dispute the intent, but identifies where the administrative and financing cost falls.

Not reported

Hiru does not give the report’s publication date, say what period it covers, or quote any figures for the additional compliance cost or the size of the working-capital effect. It does not name the remaining companies in the nine-company review beyond the nine identified by category, or set out the criteria behind the exposure matrix.

It does not report any response from the named companies, the Finance Ministry, Sri Lanka Customs or the Controller General of Imports and Exports, and does not say whether any importer has been unable to complete a payment under the new rules. No figure is given for how many importers have completed the advance-payment pre-registration.

No other verified newsroom had filed on the report at the time of writing.

Sources