January 5, 2002	Saturday	Shawwal 20, 1422

ISLAMABAD, Jan 4: Federal Minister for Food and Agriculture Khair Muhammad Junejo on Friday said necessary arrangements are under way to export one million tons of surplus wheat.

Talking to APP, the minister said, “we have 5.9 million tons of wheat in the stocks and can spare one million tons for export after fulfilling local requirements.”

Junejo said storage system required some improvements to enhance export of the agriculture commodities. He said storage system is also being improved to enhance export of wheat.

He said export of wheat to Iraq was suffered due to lack of required system, and only 34,000 tons of wheat could so far been exported to Iraq while rest of the agreed quantity would be sent after fulfilment of the required measures.

He said, “inorganic matter is more than the acceptable limits specified by the Iraqi authorities and we are not used to follow such arrangements so that we are facing certain difficulties in this respect.”

However, he said, we are in the process of setting up grain storage facilities to meet international standard and requirements. A silo is also being set up to cater to the wheat export requirement.

“We are also in the state of installing laboratories to check factors of contamination including pesticides to avoid any difficulty in agri-exports in the future.

He underlined the need for making special efforts for development of storage and marketing of the surplus crops, like wheat and rice. “The on-going efforts need to be strengthened to increase per acre yield of various crops.”

The minister said he was fully aware of the problems being faced by the agriculture sector and making efforts to resolve them by mobilizing available resources.

He said he was taking special care of growers interests to encourage them to step up their efforts to enhance their production.

He said all possible measures would be taken for the implementation of the government policy in agriculture sector.—APP