Oct 11, Colombo: Sri Lanka government has decided to exempt Rs. 20 per kilo tax on imported rice to arrest the escalation of prices in the domestic market.

The decision was taken during a discussion President Mahinda Rajapaksa had with the Pettah Essential Food Importers’ Association, said the media spokesman of the Association Hemaka Fernando.

He said that the President also agreed to reduce the Rs. 15 per kilo import tax on big onion up to five rupees per kilo and the traders would issue new consignments of big onion to the market by next week.

Earlier, the government decided to release 40,000 metric tons of paddy stocks available at Agricultural Products Marketing Authority to the market at the prices Rs. 23.50 per kilo for Samba and Rs. 19.50 per kilo for Nadu. These are out of the 50,000 metric tons stocks kept for emergency depleting the emergency stock to mere 10,000 metric tons.