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Ban on wheat import to check price dive

AMER SIAL

ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Food and Agriculture's decision not to import wheat, including the already approved quantity of 0.7 million tonnes by the ECC on January 25, emanates from fears that a crisis of low prices of wheat is in the making, sources said here.

The decision was taken, as some vested interests are trying to create artificial flour crisis in the country to keep their monopoly over the procurement and distribution of wheat, said sources.

According to official estimates, the private sector handles the distribution of 13 million tonnes of wheat and vested interest holders have well stocked the imported wheat, so as to crash the prices of wheat at the time of harvest, which is likely to start next month.

According to sources the imported quantity of 1.6 million tonnes of wheat was enough to meet the domestic requirements and government has decided to overcome the problem by adopting a better distribution system.

They said that further import at this juncture is not suitable as field surveys are predicting a bumper crop of 20 million tonnes, as wheat acreage has registered an increase of four percent for the current Rabi crop. However, the sources said that if need arises wheat would be imported.

The government has already imported 1.6 million tonnes of wheat at a cost of $217 million and instead of resolving the crisis this has further aggravated the problem.

This was one of the main reason identified by sources for shelving already approved plans of importing 0.7 million tonnes of wheat.

According to sources, it has been decided after the monitoring of wheat distribution that the legitimate demands of the provinces would met on the basis of population and the releases to the flour mills would be monitored.

The wheat requirements of Afghanistan are no more than 0.6 to 0.8 million tonnes and can be easily met through official channels.