The government expects to provide consumers food items at a lower price throughout the year to control the short-term price fluctuations to alleviate the hardships of the people, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said.
The Prime Minister was delivering the Economic Policy Statement in Parliament yesterday.
“We will improve the domestic supply chains and distribution networks. In the meantime, we will allow the importing of food products and other essential commodities at reasonable prices within a competitive market framework.
We have reduced taxes on food commodities substantially over the past three months. We urge domestic wholesalers and retailers to pass the benefits of these reductions to the consumers,” the Prime Minister said. However, the Premier said the government will provide the space to the Central Bank to carry out its Monetary Policy independently, in order to maintain price stability on a sustainable basis.
“The Central Bank is moving towards a new Monetary Policy framework targeting a flexible inflation.
The aim of this framework is to maintain a low inflation continuously, while supporting economic activities,” the Prime Minister said, adding that with this change of policy,people would get the opportunity to live comfortably with the assurance of price stability.