President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih on Tuesday ratified the 18th Amendment Bill to the Export-Import Act which prohibits the import of goods declared as single-use plastic. The aforementioned amendment was passed by the Parliament at the 28th sitting of its third session, on 7th December 2020.
The amendment vests the President with the authority to compile and publicise a list of goods to be classified as such, and to add or remove items from that list. This will enable the Maldives to steadily phase out single-use plastic.
The amendment mandates the Government to compile and publicise the temporary list of banned single-use plastics, including the date from which the changes will come into effect, before 1st January 2021, on the Government Gazette.
Following ratification, the Act has been published in the Government Gazette. With the ratification, Section 12 of the 17th Amendment to the Export-Import Act (31/79) of Maldives has been rendered void.
