Sri Lanka’s cabinet of ministers gave the nod to import 92.1 million eggs from India to keep prices down to fill a gap in domestic production, Cabinet spokesman Minister Bandula Gunawardana said.
Quotations were called from three Indian companies by the State Trading (General) Corporation to import eggs which has been given the exclusive privilege of importing eggs.
Sri Lanka’s chicken farms were closed and hatcheries killed layer parent stocks after the Consumer Affairs Authority, another state agency, slapped price controls on eggs at a time when feed prices rocketed in a currency collapse.
The eggs will be bought on a “recommendation made by the standing procurement committee appointed by the Cabinet of Ministers based on” the price specifications furnished by the three Indian companies, a statement said.
Sri Lanka has also restricted the import of maize, the key raw material for chicken feed through import taxes and a permit raj to give extra profits to maize farmers and a politically connected collector oligopoly (sometimes called the mafia).
Domestic production of maize (self-sufficiency) is glorified in Sri Lanka ‘to save foreign exchange’ because macro-economists cut rates with printed money (inflationary open market operations) and trigger forex shortages and currency depreciation.
