KARACHI, Feb 15: Pakistani businessmen will raise the issue of including wheat products in the positive list of South Asia Free Trade Area (Safta) agreement during the second Saarc business leaders’ conclave being held in Mumbai from February 17-18.

The inclusion of wheat products in the Safta positive list will enable Pakistan to export the commodity duty-free to wheat-deficit member countries to meet their domestic needs.

The conclave, being held under the aegis of Saarc Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI), will provide an opportunity to business leaders and intellectuals to have pro-active interaction with their counterparts from other member states and to find out ways and means of expanding trade and business relations.

Pakistan is expected to reap a bumper wheat crop of over 22 million tons this season and will have a sizeable exportable surplus. The government has already projected to export around two million tons of wheat for which the governments of Punjab and Sindh have also invited bids from private sector for foreign sales of 0.5 million tons.

“We will raise the issue in the Saarc conclave for inclusion of wheat products in the Safta list so that Pakistani exporters could export the products to regional countries without paying duties,” Johar Ali Kandhari, a leading exporter of wheat products, told Dawn before leaving for Mumbai here on Thursday.

The country could earn more foreign exchange through value-addition of wheat products, he added.

He said that the bumper wheat crop this season would offer great opportunities to our exporters to explore the markets of Saarc member states, which are going to import large quantities of wheat products to meet their domestic needs.

Mr Kandhari further said that India who had been a traditional supplier of wheat products to other Saarc member states like Bangladesh and Nepal would also have to import huge quantity of wheat and wheat products as that country was facing draught-like situation and its wheat crop was very short.

Pakistani wheat products like wheat flour grade one (maida), plain flour (atta), semolina (sujee), wheat brand (chokker) and vermicelli (pasta) are in great demand in the world market for being tasty and of good quality. However, since the government did not include wheat products in its positive list under Safta this means that exports to intra-region of Saarc would not be duty free.

Many Saarc countries are generally food-deficient and import large quantities of food grains to meet their domestic shortages. Sometimes, however, they reap bumper crops and end up with huge quantities of exportable surpluses.

Other Saarc member states have put wheat products under their positive lists of the Safta which allows them duty-free imports of the produce.

The government allowed export of wheat products in July 2006 and according to private sector estimates around 5,000 tons of wheat products had been exported so far with an estimated value of $125 million.

The private sector exporters believe that if the government encourages wheat products exports which is a value-addition the country could earn more foreign exchange.