Govt. looks to imports to keep prices low during festive season

The government is to import additional essential food items including for the upcoming festive season, Trade Ministry said.
According to the Ministry, a special delegation headed by Trade Minister Bandula Gunawardena arrived in Myanmar on Monday to hold discussions with Myanmarian officials to purchase rice, sugar and other essential items.
The Ministry expects to import 50,000 metric tons of rice and additional stocks of dhal, sugar, gram, green gram, sprats among other essential items. The main goal of importing additional essential food stocks is to increase the stocks at the local market during the festive season and prevent fake shortages created by the traders.
In addition, the Ministry is taking measures to process government paddy stocks into rice and release 40,000 metric tons of rice immediately to the market through the marketing stalls in the state sector for the consumers to purchase from the CWE sale outlets, cooperatives and co-op city branches at reasonable prices.
Meanwhile, rice sellers have alleged that mill owners were withholding large stocks of rice with the intention of artificially increasing prices. They note that if the government tax of Rs.20 is removed from imports then prices can drop to between Rs.30-Rs.35. It was also reported government attempts to reduce prices with imports would be unsuccessful unless a tax reprieve was granted to them. A slight shortage of rice is being experienced by the market at the moment.