Government advocates policy of market intervention — Minister Yapa

Monday, 24 January 2011 00:01 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The government always believes in market intervention in times of price escalations. But unfortunately all previous institutions set up for the purpose were destroyed by the previous United National Party governments under the name of privatisation said Minister of Environment Anura Priyadharshana Yapa.

“Deploying the military to sell vegetable when there is an artificial increase of prices in the market has brought favourable results as the consumers are happy now,” he said.

When asked about the adverse comment made by an opposition MP about making use of the services of the Army to sell vegetable the minister said that this was not only a relief to the consumers but a win-win position, because, the military purchases the goods directly from the farmers giving them a reasonable price for their produce.

He said that the government while believing in private sector participation in running the economy, the SLFP led government always kept the options open for market interventions through government institutions.

He said there were many government owned institutions such as paddy marketing board, CWE, Markfed, Co-opfed, Marketing Dept. etc. But all these institutions were destroyed by the UNP governments without a permanent solution to be adopted in times of price escalations.

“We have now revived Sathosa and the Paddy Marketing Board. PMB has purchased and maintains a buffer stock of paddy to be released to the market in times of a crisis situation” Minister Yapa said. (News.lk)