Agriculture Minister Mahinda Amaraweera said, the Paddy Marketing Board (PMB) will enter the domestic rice market shortly for the first time and sell high-quality rice varieties at an affordable price to public, while maintaining a steady price for paddy.
He said the government expected a bigger paddy harvest at the next Maha and Yala seasons because of the favourable weather conditions for paddy cultivation. Private traders are waiting to purchase paddy at cheap price from farmers.
He said the PMB was ready to purchase any amount of paddy from farmers at the coming Maha and Yala seasons and mill rice from paddy of highest quality bought by it. The PMB cannot keep paddy for longer periods if private traders don’t purchase price from the PMB. Therefore, the best solution is to mill rice from paddy purchased by the Board, packet them and sell in the domestic market, through the CWE under the brand name “PMB Rice’. Price of a kilogram of PMB rice will be lower than the price of rice sold by private traders.
Our intention is mainly to control the rice market and prevent sharp increases in rice prices in the domestic market. The PMB right now runs as a loss-making venture. By entering the rice market, I expect the PMB could run as a no-profit-no-loss commercial venture and provide the consumer high-quality rice at affordable prices,” the minister said
