The Hon. Bimal Rathnayake

¶ 01 Hon. Speaker, on behalf of the Minister, I table the answer.

¶ 02 (a) (i) 15 October 2025. Under Import Control licensing, rice imports were temporarily suspended; however, by Gazette Extraordinary 2458/43 of 15.10.2025, imports of GR 11 (HS 1006.30.29) rice equivalent to Keeri Samba were permitted from 15.10.2025 to 10.11.2025.

¶ 03 (ii) Subject to a cap of 520 MT per importer, the list of government and private institutions, their quantities and tax revenue are provided in the annex, placed in the Library.

¶ 04 (iii) For 2026, Rs. 10,000 million has been allocated for paddy procurement; the Paddy Marketing Board (PMB) expects to purchase 80,000 MT. PMB has 353 stores with 326,710 MT capacity, of which about 250,000 MT are presently usable; district-level refurbishment is underway. A mechanism is in place for PMB stocks to be milled by small and medium millers via the Co-operative Wholesale Establishment (CWE) and released to the market; about 5,300 MT of rice has already been produced and released through Lanka Sathosa, co-operatives and private sector. CWE will also supply 400 MT/month of white raw rice to Triposha Ltd.

¶ 05 (b) Does not arise.