Recently, the price of agricultural products such as onions and potatoes in Sri Lanka have decreased sharply. In order to stabilize the prices in the domestic market and reduce the effect that foreign agricultural products have brought, from May 2nd, Sri Lanka started to impose increased tariffs on imported onions and potatoes.
According to the requirement of the new policy, the tariff of potatoes has increased from 30 rupees (equals to 1.2 yuan) per kilo to 40 rupees (equals to 1.6 yuan) per kilo. And the tariff of onions has increased from 1 rupee (equals to 0.01 yuan) to 40 rupees(equals to 1.6 yuan).
According to the Ministry of Finance of Sri Lanka, since then the prices of their agricultural products, especially onions and potatoes have declined. Therefore, the government decided to increase the tariffs of the mentioned products, to stabilize the prices in the domestic market and protect the profits of domestic growers. Others indicate that the planting industry in Sri Lanka is relatively backward. Therefore, the essential reason is that it cannot afford to directly compete with the imported foreign agricultural products.
Source: 1nongjing.com