Sri Lankan Prime Minister D.M. Jayaratne told Parliament yesterday that wheat flour imports should be banned completely.

Laws should be formulated to ban the importation of wheat flour, the Premier said.

Participating in the third reading of budget 2012, the Prime Minister said that price of bread should be increased more to discourage consumers from buying bread, reported Sri Lanka News.

He said there is enough land that could be used to cultivate paddy and rice flour would be an ideal replacement for wheat flour.

"We must encourage and promote rice flour instead of wheat flour which costs us heavily."