March 8, 2005

 

Pakistan's wheat imports for current fiscal to end in April

 

 

With the arrival of last shipment of 150,000 tonnes of grain, Pakistan's import plan of over million tonnes wheat for current fiscal will come to an end early next month.

 

The wheat import for the current has cost $230 million to the exchequer.

 

A senior official in the Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) stated that by the end of this month the last shipment of total 150,000 tonnes Canadian wheat would reach the port, whereas the last consignment of total 250,000 tonnes Australian wheat would be due next week.

 

"We hope during first week of April we will receive the last shipment of wheat from Canada," said Syed Masood Alam Rizvi, chairman TCP told Daily Times

 

"The April consignment would I think be the last one for the current season as we would have enough wheat to meet local demand."

 

He said during the current season the government had imported total 1.17 million tonnes from different countries bridging demand-supply gap and the deals with Australia and Canada in January were the last in this regard.

 

The government, which entered into the international market in July 2004 when it struck deal with Russia, is estimated to have spent around $234 million over import of 1.17 million tonnes wheat.

 

"We have imported total 1.17 million tonnes wheat," said Mr Rizvi at TCP. "We assess that average cost of the wheat import during the season stood at $200 per tonne so it would give you real figures of spending on wheat."

 

The government move to import wheat succeeded to cap rising prices of the commodity and its by-products in the retail market and traders believe due consignments of the commodity would keep the market stable in terms of supply and prices.

 

A 100-kilogram bag of wheat, which was available at Rs 1,080 couple of months ago, is now tagged at Rs 1,025, registering a decline of almost Re 1 per kilogram at the retail level.

 

However, the TCP chief said the federal government, which in November 2004 decided to import half million tonnes wheat, might not import remaining 100,000 tonnes as the country was expected to get over-than-targeted production during current season.

 

Wheat production in the country is expected to be bumper this season, as growers and authorities of two largest wheat producing provinces of Punjab and Sindh hope to beat 20.2 million tonnes target.

 

The federal agriculture committee last year distributed 20.2 million wheat production target among the provinces as the Punjab was projected to produce 16 million tonnes, Sindh 2.5 million tonnes, NWFP one million tonnes, Balochistan 0.6 million tonnes and Azad Jammu Kashmir was targeted to harvest one million tonnes wheat this season.