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| Tuesday, 5 October 2004 |
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First shipment of Pakistan rice arrives By Shirajiv Sirimane The first shipment of 2,000 metric tonnes of rice imported from Pakistan arrived at the Colombo harbour yesterday. The rice was imported on a directive from the Minister of Trade and Commerce and Consumer Affairs Jeyaraj Fernandopulle. The Minister negotiated this deal with the Pakistan Ambassador in Sri Lanka early last month in a bid to check the rising cost of rice in the local market. A kilo of white and red rice which was trading around Rs. 30 increased to nearly Rs. 50. This was mainly due to the lack of supply following the drought, said an official of the Ministry. Minister Fernandopulle explained the situation to Minister of Agriculture Anura Dissanayake who in turn agreed that importing rice was the best solution to reduce the price of rice in the open market. The rice would be distributed at around Rs. 35 per kilo though the co-operative network. Paying Rs. 50 plus for a kilo of rice is something the poor man cannot afford to do for a long time. "This is why the Minister decided to initially distribute rice through the co-operatives since it would be the most efficient way to reach the poor man," the Ministry official said. The second shipment of 2,500 metric tonnes of rice will arrive in Colombo tomorrow. "The Ministry is planning to sell this trough the Co-operative Wholesale Establishment (CWE) network for which negotiations had been already done," the official said. The main reason to issue these stocks to the Co-operative and CWE is to avoid the intervention of the middleman. What happened earlier was that the middle man mainly from Pettah used to buy these stocks and keep a mark up and sell. By doing this prices do not reduce. "We are expecting a kilo of rice to now reduce to less than Rs. 40 a kilo from the end of the week," the official said. The Trade Ministry has also negotiated with other counters to import large quantities of other essential goods which have increased in recent times. It has been also decided to temporarily stop all rice imports during the forthcoming harvesting season to safe guard local farmers and give them a guaranteed price. |
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