Acting Minister of Finance Senator Patrick Chinamasa published the list in a Statutory Instrument contained in last Friday's Extraordinary Government Gazette.
Presenting the 2009 National Budget late last month, Sen Chinamasa said while it was critical that the country begins to restore domestic production levels taking advantage of the liberalised currency and pricing environment, there was need to support importation of basic goods as a transitional arrangement.
"I, therefore, propose that we continue to facilitate, over the short term, the uninterrupted availability of basic goods in our markets by individuals and corporates.
"This will be reviewed taking into account the developments and improvement in domestic industrial capacity utilisation," he said.
List of Duty-Free Basic Commodities
* – Bath soap
* – Beauty or make-up preparations and preparations for the care of the skin (other than medicaments), including sunscreen or sun tan preparations; manicure or pedicure preparations
* – Broken rice
* – Coconut cooking oil
* – Cotton seed cooking oil
* – Flour of dried leguminous vegetables
* – Flour of potatoes
* – Flour of sago or of roots or tubers
* – Groundnut cooking oil
* – Husked (brown) rice
* – Laundry bar soap
* – Liquid margarine
* – Maize (corn) flour
* – Maize cooking oil
* – Margarine
* – Olive cooking oil
* – Palm cooking oil
* – Palm kernel / babassu cooking oil
* – Petroleum jelly in other packings, which is 5 litres and above
* – Petroleum jelly in packings not exceeding 5 litres
* – Rice in husk (paddy or rough)
* – Rye flour
* – Salt in immediate packings of less than 5kg
* – Salt in other packing, which is 5kg and above
* – Semi-milled/wholly milled rice whether or not polished or glazed
* – Sesame cooking oil
* – Soyabean cooking oil
* – Sunflower / safflower seed cooking oil
* – Toothpaste
* – Vegetable cooking oil
* – Washing powder
* – Wheat/muesli flour
The Herald
Post published in: Agriculture