National Plant Quarantine Service(NPQS)
The core objectives of NPQS are threefold: first, to shield the nation's plant resources by executing appropriate phytosanitary measures during imports; second, to facilitate and secure international trade of plants and plant products through a robust export certification system; and third, to mitigate risks to national biosecurity and the environment while safeguarding valuable plant resources.The plant quarantine activities related to international trade are performed through four Plant Quarantine Stations (PQS) located at International Airports, Katunayake, Maththala, Rathmalana and Jaffna, the Seaport, Colombo and Plant Quarantine Unit (PQU) Central Mail Exchange, Colombo. NPQS provides various important services such as, issuing plant import permits, issuing phytosanitary certificate, inspection of export and import consignment, testing of export and import consignment, application of plant quarantine treatments, action on non-compliance & notification, etc. In order to provide efficient and effective services for international trade facilitation while ensuring the regulation of movement of plant health NPQS has taken various measures to utilize the power of digitalization. The ePayment Gateway is one of the important initiatives as per the requirement of Digital Policy of the government of Sri Lanka and International Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
