Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2017-12-12

Management of the Warehouse Complexes being constructed in the Districts of Polonnaruwa, Killinochchi and Ratnapura

- As a solution for the decline of prices of agricultural products due to the glut situation of such products in the market during the harvesting period, the Government has implemented a project for providing high quality storage facilities to the farmers to store their agricultural crops. Under this project, action has been taken to construct 03 warehouse complexes in the Districts of Polonnaruwa, Kilinochchi and Ratnapura at the cost of Rs.600 million. Out of them, the construction of the warehouse at Ratnapura has already been completed and the construction work of the other two warehouses is due to be completed by early 2018.

It has been identified that it would be appropriate to assign the management of these warehouse complexes with an external party, on the basis of a monthly fee. As such, the proposal made by Hon. Mangala Samaraweera, the Minister of Finance and Mass Media, to assign the contracts for the management of warehouses at Polonnaruwa, Ratnapura and Kilinochchi, to the Regional Development Bank with experience in this regard, was approved by the Cabinet.