August 14, 2002	Wednesday	Jamadi-us-Saani 4, 1423

KARACHI, Aug 13: The Trading Corporation of Pakistan has received a highest bid of $108.17 per ton for export of 100,000 tons of wheat. In total 13 bids were received. The tender was opened on Monday in the presence of bidders or their authorized representatives.

Official sources said the validity of tender was up to Friday, and the TCP as per the terms and conditions of tender documents had the right to accept or give counter-offer to the bidders.

The highest bid of $108.17 per ton is the best price the TCP has ever received for wheat export. However, the TCP is likely to give counter-offer and asked the bidder to enhance the offer by $1 or $2. The TCP is also looking into account if the bidder has met all the terms and conditions of the tender document.

The TCP offered 100,000 tons of “PAKPUNJAB” wheat of Punjab Food Department (crop 2002) for export and fixed Monday (August 12) for tender opening day.

According to the TCP sources, the second best offer of $105.50 came from three to four bidders, while the lowest bid was at $101 per ton. At preset the corporation is under taking the scrutiny of the bids offered by the 13 participants. According to initial indications, the TCP had detected flaws in some of the bids offered.

Citing an example, official of the corporation told Dawn that according to tender condition the minimum bid of 25,000 tons would be at sellers option, but some of the bidders have asked for buyers option. Similarly, the condition of opening of L/Cs within ten days after acceptance of bid offer is being rejected by some of the bidders.

However, the final decision will be taken on Friday as the offers stay valid for another three days, sources said.

As per official figures the country is carrying around 7.2 million tons of wheat in the public sector and much higher quantity in the private sector.

The country has harvested over 18.5 million tons of wheat in the Rabi crop of 2002, while last year it was 19.2 million tons. With the bumper crops for the last three consecutive years Pakistan, once a net importer of wheat, has made its place as an exporter in the world wheat market.

Besides a bulk export of 100,000 tons of wheat to Iraq under the UN oil-for-food programme, the country has so far exported about 0.6 million tons wheat to various countries of Middle East and Africa.

Sources said since the country just made its debut in the wheat export, business had yet to make a lot of efforts to capture the markets. However, the most pressing need is to develop infrastructure on modern lines so that it could compete with high quality wheat coming from Canada, the US and Australia, they added.

There is an urgent need of setting up grain testing labs, mechanized cleaning systems and silos so that wheat is pumped directly into ship. At present most of these activities are being carried out manually which results in damaging wheat quality, sources said.

However, the government has already taken up a number of measures in this direction and is setting up testing labs, and working on silos is already under way, official sources said.