President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu has said that the State Trading Organization (STO) is a company established for trade, and that the company should not only import staple food items.

The President said this while speaking on the 9th episode of the “Rayyithunnaa Eku” podcast.

In this regard, the President said that the most beneficial approach for citizens is to import the most important and most commonly used varieties of fruits and vegetables, and that this is not competing with private businesses, but rather ensuring that citizens can obtain these items at the best prices.

“The Bank of Maldives is now providing traders with a much broader opportunity for dollars than ever before. Therefore, parties importing food items wholesale will have much greater access to this opportunity than before. So we have studied and prepared all of this by examining the numbers, we have carefully looked at how this will work, and we decided to do this because it is the most beneficial approach for citizens,” the President said.

When the President said this, the government had decided that STO would begin importing in bulk and selling in the market some of the most commonly imported fruits and vegetables to the Maldives, as well as other commonly used food items.

This is a decision made as part of the efforts to implement the policy outlined in his manifesto to establish food security in the Maldives.