ACBOA demands steep price slump in bakery products

SCL came into effect on December 14 through a special gazette notification issued by Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa

Chairman of the All Ceylon Bakery Owners’ Association (ACBOA), N.K. Jayawardana said the prices of all bakery products should drop drastically and that the association was in the process of reviewing the tax cut on wheat flour – announced yesterday by the Finance Ministry – in a bid to see the possibility of reducing the price of a loaf of bread to Rs.50.

The government recently removed the consolidated tax of Rs.36 per kilogram of imported wheat flour and replaced it with the Special Commodity Levy (SCL) of Rs.8 per kilogram.

“The SCL came into effect on December 14 through a special gazette notification issued by Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa in his capacity as the Finance, Economy and Policy Development Minister. Thus far, only wheat grain has been imported and milled to meet the national requirement of wheat flour consumption,” the Finance Ministry said.

In order to control soaring prices of rice in the market, the Cabinet last week decided to set a maximum retail price of Rs. 98/kg of Samba and Nadu while reducing the duty of wheat flour thereby enabling its direct importation. Accordingly, the all-inclusive duty of Rs.36/kg of wheat flour has plummeted to Rs 8/kg with effect from December 14. Expressing gratitude to the government on the tax cut of wheat flour imports, the

ACBOA Chairman said this was the first time a government provided tax relief on wheat flour imports. He said the consolidated tax had been imposed by previous governments not to protect the consumer but for the benefit of two multinational companies monopolising wheat flour imports.

“If the two MNCS do not reduce the price of wheat flour in keeping with the tax cut, we are ready to import wheat flour and pass the benefit to the consumer. The prices of all bakery products must fall within a month as it takes nearly 30 days to import wheat flour,” he said.