IPOH, April 16 — Pangkor Island will get its duty-free status on January 1 next year.

Sultan of Perak Sultan Nazrin Muizzuddin Shah today said the state government had submitted an application to gazette the island as tax free.

"Various efforts to realise the status is underway. Efforts to assist locals in obtaining the spillover effort should also be one of the development agenda for Pangkor Island to ensure they are not left out," he said in his speech opening the second session of the 14th Perak assembly at the State Secretariat building here.

Pangkor will also be exempted from the Sales and Services Tax (SST).

The tax-free status for Pangkor was first announced by the federal government, then under Barisan Nasional, during the tabling of Budget 2018 in Parliament.

Then prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak who was also finance minister at that time said the west coast island would be declared tax free, with the exception of tobacco, alcohol and vehicles.

Local tourism players had previously said that the duty-free status was a good idea if authorities used the tax-free status to bring in stores that sold branded goods like chocolates, perfumes and clothing.