January 08, 2008	Tuesday	Zilhaj 28, 1428

PESHAWAR, Jan 7: The Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry has warned that the flour crisis will worsen in the NWFP if the federal government failed to revise what it called its flawed food policy in the next couple of weeks.

Addressing a press conference here on Monday, SCCI president Haji Mohammad Asif said the federal government must adopt a uniform wheat policy if it really wanted to end the crisis.

SCCI senior vice-president Haji Inayat and former president of Flour Mills Association Mohammad Sadiq were present on the occasion.

The SCCI president said the NWFP flour mills could not meet the demand with the existing wheat quota.

Rejecting the impression that flour was being smuggled to Afghanistan from the Frontier, he said the federal government had already imposed a 35 per cent duty on flour export to Afghanistan.

He said the federal government had no actual statistics about expected wheat yield and its possible consumption, as it allowed the wheat export at $230 per metric ton but now it was importing the commodity at $440 per metric ton to meet the requirement till the next wheat crop.

The provincial president of the Flour Mills Association, Mohammad Sadiq, said that out of 200 flour mills in the NWFP, only 80 were operating and added that those mills too received a meagre quantity of wheat from the government stocks.

“The total annual need of the local population is 3.1 tons but the province’s own production is not more than one million ton, which means that it has to rely on wheat transportation from Punjab,” he said.

He said that 30 to 40 mills were exporting flour to Afghanistan through legal ways.

He said the SCCI was not against the setting up of Reconstruction Opportunity Zones in tribal areas, but due to poor law and order situation no one was ready to invest in those areas. Therefore, he said, it would be a better use of the US assistance if ROZs were also set up in settled parts of the NWFP.

He pledged to make efforts for the revival of sick industrial units, mostly in the Gadoon industrial estate of the province.