PRICES of some of the essential commodities on the Karachi wholesale markets continued to rise last week as leading stockists held on to their positions in an apparent effort to keep pressure on supply lines.

No commodity showed any fall over the last week and rose sharply with the lead of pulses, which posted fresh gain ranging between Rs100 and Rs400 per bag.

An idea of renewed price flare-up may well be have from the fact that prices of bajra shot up by Rs250 to Rs600 per bag, which is not a widely used commodity in commercial terms, dealers said. Physical off-take both by retailers and wholesalers, however, remained on the lower side as no one among them was inclined to fuel a fresh price flare-up, dealers said.

They said arrivals of fresh harvested wheat, in a way, contained increase in prices, but reports coming from the wheat belt indicated that private sector traders and representatives of flour mills were operating in the area and buying the commodity directly from the growers.

Private sectors stockists are reportedly paying more than Rs625 per 40 kg, the official procurement price, in an effort to collect the floating stock of the new crop, they said.

The growers, however, complained of shortage of bags to the procurement officials as well as delayed delivery. As a result, many among them sold their commodity to stockists to avoid lengthy official process, they added.

The general consumers fear that prices of wheat and flour would not come down from the current levels despite arrival of fresh crop, some others said.

Unlike previous years, wheat has now assumed the feature of trading commodity and is being traded daily on the local markets at much higher rates with the involvement of investors, they said. Among other essentials, rice also remained under pressure and its prices increased.

Barring gram whole and gram dal, prices of pulses showed sharp increase followed by a short new crop. Some dealers said higher exports were behind the steep rise in prices despite the fact the new crop was on the higher side as compared to previous year. Elsewhere, prices remained stable around previous levels owing to modest improvement in supplies and fall in demand at higher levels.

In official trading, cotton prices did not show much change but, on the other hand, forward deals in new crop, sowing of which is still to resume in major growing areas, were being made on all-time higher rates. Spinners and mills fear another short yet to be sown, market sources said.

The market price flare-up was led again by pulses sector under the lead of new gram crop and gram dal, which spurted by Rs200 to Rs425 for gram whole and Rs800 for dal.

Market sources said prices of fresh gram crop showed a record increase despite reports of a bumper crop. Market sources said exporters were hoarding the commodity to meet their export commitments, which had led to price hike. Masoor whole and dal followed them, which were quoted higher by Rs100 to Rs200 followed by urad, which rose by Rs112.50. Other varieties were traded at previous levels.

Barring a fresh increase in price of IRRI-6 by Rs350 per bag of 100 kg on active demand by exporters, all other varieties were traded at previous levels.

Among other essentials, wheat prices remained unchanged as supply position showed improvement. Sugar prices, however, showed an increase of Rs90 per bag after having remained steady around previous levels for the last couple of weeks.

Desi sugar and gur followed it, as both were quoted higher by Rs100, the largest rise of Rs200 to Rs500 per 40 kg being in gur followed by reports of smuggling to neighbouring countries, dealers said.

Among cereals, both jowar and bajra remained in strong demand and were marked up by Rs100 to Rs600 per bag, while maize was firmly held at the previous levels and so was barley.

Cotton prices were quoted higher by Rs53 per 40 kg, on the other hand major seeds, mainly cottonseed, rape seed, castor seed, til and some others were traded at previous levels.

Oilcakes also lacked normal trading interest followed by reports of comfortable ready position and were held unchanged at previous levels for both rapeseed and cottonseed cakes.—M.A.