Sri Lankan supermarket shelves went empty without eggs and the government was forced to import eggs.

The Sri Lankan Cabinet of Ministers has approved the proposal to import over 92 million chicken eggs from India to help domestic consumers buy eggs at a fair price.

Cabinet Spokesman and Media Minister Bandula Gunawardena announced on Tuesday that the cabinet approved the proposal forwarded by President Ranil Wickremesinghe in his capacity as the Minister of Finance, Economic Stabilisation and National Policies to procure 92.1 million eggs for a period of 3 months.

Minister Gunawardena said that the quotations have been called from 3 Indian companies recommended by the Department of Animal Products and Health to import eggs through the government-run State Trading Corporation.

"The decision was taken to stabilise the prices of eggs and to help the consumers until the local poultry industry recovers from the crisis," the Minister said.

Hit by an unprecedented economic crisis for more than a year, Sri Lanka faced a severe shortage of essential food and the country couldn’t produce eggs as animal feed and other necessities for the poultry industry were not available due to the dollar crunch.

Supermarket shelves went empty without eggs and the government was forced to import eggs from India from March this year as remaining eggs were overpriced in black markets.

Initially allowed to be used for bakeries and for food manufacturing, Indian eggs were sold at more than half the price and at Sri Lankan Rs35 each.

Indo-Asian News Service