India to allow private companies for wheat exports

India will issue an order shortly after May 15 allowing private trade, for the first time since 2007, to export up to two million tonnes of wheat to ease the burden of overflowing stocks, trade and government sources said Thursday.

They said the proposal has already been cleared by a panel of topnotch bureaucrats and was just awaiting approval from trade secretary G.K. Pillai.

Earlier, the government had allowed only state-run trading firms to export limited quantities but later decided to allow even private trade to carry out the exports on the food ministry's insistence.

India, which is expected to harvest around 78 million tonnes of wheat this year, is saddled with surplus stocks as the country had a bumper crop last year.