Sri Lanka's new government announced the lifting of a ban on foreign nationals visiting the island's former war zones and the scrapping of an economic embargo on minority Tamil regions.

President Maithripala Sirisena, just a week after taking office, has removed the travel ban introduced by his predecessor three months ago, the defence ministry said on Friday.

"Since there is no war situation in the country and the life of the community is normal, it was decided to remove restrictions imposed on foreigners," the ministry said in a statement.

It said a ban on transporting unspecified goods to the minority Tamil-dominated Northern province, of which Jaffna is the capital, was also lifted with immediate effect.

An economic embargo on the Eastern province too was removed, said the statement issued by defence ministry spokesman Ruwan Wanigasooriya.

The same officer had in October declared that travel restrictions were imposed following information that "foreigners are trying to cause discord among ethnic communities."

"When there's a tremendous threat like that to our national security, we can't just wait. We have to take action," Wanigasooriya said in October. The restrictions applied to foreign journalists too.

But the current government argued then, when in opposition, that the ban was to prevent Sri Lankan Tamils holding foreign passports from visiting the region to campaign against former leader Mahinda Rajapaksa.