The Myanmar Government has agreed to provide 100,000 MTs of Rangoon Kekulu with immediate effect to overcome the current increase in the rice of price in the local market artificially created by hoarding. The decision was taken during the visit made by Trade, Marketing Development, Cooperative and Consumer Affairs Minister Bandula Gunawardena to Myanmar last week. Minister Gunawardana told the Daily News that President Mahinda Rajapaksa was directly involved to the matter through discussions with the Myanmar Government. "This is a big achievement. The Government was able to import 100,000 MT rice from Myanmar at a time when many foreign countries have banned rice exports due to the current global food crisis.' The shipments are due to arrive after the Sinhala and Tamil New Year holidays. The Minister said that 100,000 mts of Rangoon Kekulu will arrive in the country within two months. The Government has decided to provide Rangoon Kekulu at a fixed price of Rs.55 per kilo as a relief to consumers. Rice will be distributed through Cooperatives and Laksathosa branches countrywide with immediate effect to meet the demand. The move is expected to bring down the price of rice in the open market. This will also help deal with the rice shortage in the market. "This decision was taken to break the monopoly of the traders. We urged them not to create an unnecessary rice shortage by hiding rice stocks.' He said when the Government gets directly involved in the import of rice, the prices in the open market would come down. "It is useless hiding rice stocks unnecessarily and selling it at higher prices with adequate stocks available in the market,' the Minister said. Meanwhile private traders and the cooperative sector are engaged in importing rice continuously by using tax relief provided by the Government with the objective of providing rice at low prices to the consumers. According to market sources, the price of rice will be reduced at least by 10 per cent over the current market prices once the stocks arrive in the market. This would also prevent the artificial shortage created by black marketeers.