The Australian government has lifted a three-year ban on the import of Sri Lanka pineapples, a move that has been welcomed by the island’s fruit sector.


The restrictions had been imposed by Canberra because of concerns about the risk of importing pests into Australia via contaminated Sri Lankan pineapples. The liberalisation has two conditions: that the country’s pineapple exporters are registered with the Sri Lankan agriculture ministry and that exported fruit is smoked. 


Rohinie Ekanayake, director of the department’s National Plant Quarantine Unit told the Sri Lanka press: “Australia is a big foreign market for us to earn more and more foreign currency and I hope that our pineapple cultivators and exporters would take fullest use of the opportunity.”