Discover Kapruka, the leading online shopping platform in Sri Lanka, where you can conveniently send Gifts and Flowers to your loved ones for any event. Explore a wide range of popular Shopping Categories on Kapruka, including Toys, Groceries, Electronics, Birthday Cakes, Fruits, Chocolates, Automobile, Mother and Baby Products, Clothing, and Fashion. Additionally, Kapruka offers unique online services like Money Remittance, Astrology, Medicine Delivery, and access to over 700 Top Brands. Also If you’re interested in selling with Kapruka, Partner Central by Kapruka is the best solution to start with. Moreover, through Kapruka Global Shop, you can also enjoy the convenience of purchasing products from renowned platforms like Amazon and eBay and have them delivered to Sri Lanka.Send love straight to their heart this Valentine's with our thoughtful gifts!
Discover Kapruka, the leading online shopping platform in Sri Lanka, where you can conveniently send Gifts and Flowers to your loved ones for any event. Explore a wide range of popular Shopping Categories on Kapruka, including Toys, Groceries, Electronics, Birthday Cakes, Fruits, Chocolates, Automobile, Mother and Baby Products, Clothing, and Fashion. Additionally, Kapruka offers unique online services like Money Remittance, Astrology, Medicine Delivery, and access to over 700 Top Brands. Also If you’re interested in selling with Kapruka, Partner Central by Kapruka is the best solution to start with. Moreover, through Kapruka Global Shop, you can also enjoy the convenience of purchasing products from renowned platforms like Amazon and eBay and have them delivered to Sri Lanka.Send love straight to their heart this Valentine's with our thoughtful gifts!
By Madhusha Thavapalakumar
A large-scale rice scam that had gone on unhindered for five years by exploiting the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Pakistan has been uncovered by the authorities last week, The Sunday Morning Business learns.
The Pakistan-Sri Lanka FTA (PSFTA) permits the importation of an annual quota of 6,000 metric tonnes (MT) of PK385 variety of basmati rice or super kernel basmati from Pakistan on a duty-free basis.
However, a recent quality verification test conducted on rice, which was imported from Pakistan last year but is still stuck at the Port, has been found to be an inferior basmati lookalike rice variety, according to Ministry of Trade Spokesperson Mahesh Wickrema.
“Although the rice that had been imported is of inferior quality, it has an appearance similar to basmati or super kernel basmati. This inferior quality rice is the rice variety that has been imported for the last five years under the Pakistan FTA,” Wickrema told The Sunday Morning Business.
Wickrema added that the scam had been conducted by a group of private businesses with the support of state institutions, which were provided the necessary permits to import rice from Pakistan.
“The permit to import rice was with several state institutions. The private businesses had got together and ordered rice through these licences. When it arrived in Sri Lanka, they would sell it to wholesale and retail rice sellers, mainly in Pettah. So they have misused the FTA to maximise profits by importing sub-standard rice and misrepresenting it as basmati,” Wickrema added.
According to him, the sole purpose of the scam was to achieve a wider profit margin by selling a kilogramme of inferior quality rice for the price of a kilogramme of basmati, which is generally an expensive rice variety.
The Ministry has now launched an investigation into the scam and is in the process of obtaining the names of the private businesses that were part of the scam. All our attempts on Thursday (24) to reach former Minister of Industry and Commerce Rishad Bathiudeen, under whose purview the PSFTA came into being during this five-year period, proved futile.
The PSFTA became operational from 12 June 2005 onwards. Under the FTA, Sri Lanka and Pakistan had agreed to offer preferential market access to each other’s exports by way of tariff concessions.
Accordingly, Sri Lanka enjoys duty-free market access on 206 products in the Pakistani market including tea, rubber, and coconut. Pakistan in return has duty-free access on 102 products in the Sri Lankan market, including oranges, basmati rice, and engineering goods.
The agreement mentions that during the month of October every year, the Department of Commerce would publish a newspaper advertisement in all three languages on the availability of the annual quota of the 6,000 MT of the PK385 variety of basmati rice or super kernel basmati for duty-free importation during the following calendar year (January-December). Importers who were willing to import rice under the PSFTA registered with the Department and imported rice under a duty waiver.