November 30, 2007	Friday	Ziqa’ad 19, 1428

ISLAMABAD, Nov 29: The state-run Trading Corporation of Pakistan has issued a tender to import 200,000 tons of wheat in bulk, an agency official said on Thursday.

Bids from foreign suppliers, both pre-qualified as well as non-pre-qualified, will be received by December 8 and opened the same day, the corporation said.

Pakistan in September announced plans to import 1 million tons of milling wheat to maintain buffer stocks amid rising domestic prices of wheat and wheat flour despite a bumper crop.

U.S. traders said this month Pakistan bought at least 150,000 tons of U.S. soft white wheat and 84,000 tons of Canadian wheat against a November tender of 300,000 tons.

Pakistan paid $511.75 per ton, cost and freight, for all 234,000 tons, the traders said.

There was talk that Louis Dreyfus Corp., which sold 50,000 tons, may have sold Pakistan an additional 50,000 tons of U.S. wheat, U.S. traders said last week.

The Trading Corporation has already bought about 100,000 tons of wheat against two separate tenders of 50,000 each issued in September and October, corporation officials said.

After achieving output of 23.3 million tons in the 2006-07 crop year, Pakistan has set a target of 24 million tons for the 2007-08 crop year.

Officials say the import of 1 million tons of wheat will help meet domestic requirements, estimated at 22 million tons a year, until the new crop starts arriving around March.—Reuters