Indian rice starts arriving in Colombo

Container trucks filled with rice wait outside McCallum warehouses to be offloaded yesterday

• 11,000 MT of Indian parboiled rice offloaded at Colombo Port
• Second load to reach before end October

Ending a long wait, fresh rice shipments from India began arriving at the Cooperative Wholesale Establishment (CWE) warehouses yesterday, the Industry and Commerce Ministry said in a statement. 

As many as 38 rice container trucks lined up awaiting transfer of their rice cargoes to the McCallum warehouses of the CWE at D.R. Wijewardene Rd, Colombo 1.   

These stocks are from the first 11,000 MT (out of 100,000 MT) raw Nadu parboiled rice arriving from India and have been brought to Colombo Port by container vessels named Vladivostock 12 and Charles Schultz that berthed beginning mid-October.

So far 11,000 MT of Nadu parboiled rice from an Indian private supplier, which are the first shipments from the 100,000 MT rice from India have been offloaded at Colombo Port and now being transferred to CWE warehouses. Close to 3,000 MT of such rice bags from Colombo Port have entered CWE’s McCallum warehouses.

The arrivals are a result of Government to overseas private sector purchase, the Ministry said. The rice bags are printed with the CWE logo in India before being packed into containers. These stocks from CWE warehouses will next be delivered to Lanka Sathosa outlets across the country to be sold at Rs. 74 per kilo to consumers.  

Previously Industry and Commerce Minister Rishad Bathiudeen, under whom both CWE and Lanka Sathosa function, said that he was making every effort to ensure no shortages would occur.

“Under the directions of the Government’s Cost of Living Committee (CoLC) we announced on 13 October that we would import 500,000 MT rice. The aim of CoLC is to support our consumers with lowest prices and give steady supplies,” he said last week during his discussions at the Ministry. An equal MT volume of Nadu rice stocks are also expected from the Indian supplier before the end of this month, resulting in steady domestic supplies. The Government has also called for international tenders to purchase an additional 200,000 MT of rice before the end of the year.