ISLAMABAD: The government has shelved the decision to allow the private sector to import 300,000 tonnes of wheat, taking into consideration the satisfactory situation of reserves in the country ahead of the harvesting season.

National Food Security and Research Secretary Mohammad Hashim Popal­zai informed the Senate Standing Committee on National Food Security on Wednesday that the country was in no need of imported wheat at this time since surplus stock of 2.35 million tonnes of wheat was available and would be sufficient till harvesting of the wheat crop was completed in Sindh and Punjab.

Wheat price in the international market is quite high and importers have not shown interest in placing orders in view of a low margin of profit.

Mr Popalzai told Dawn that the government would have a surplus stock of about one million tonnes of wheat by the time harvesting season for 2020 ended in June.

It may be recalled that the Economic Coordination Committee of the cabinet had decided to allow import of 300,000 tonnes of wheat by the end of March to reduce its price and meet the domestic requirements. For this purpose, the regulatory duty had been withdrawn to allow the private sector to import the approved quantity of wheat.

The standing committee decided to fix the wheat procurement targets for Punjab, Sindh and Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation (Passco). The Punjab government was asked to procure 4.5m tonnes of wheat during the coming harvesting season, which was expected to start after mid-April. Sindh was given the target of procuring 1.4m tonnes of wheat this season which started in mid-March. Passco was given the procurement target of 1.8m tonnes.

Senator Syed Muzaffar Husain Shah, who chaired the meeting, told Dawn that the public sector procurement target had been enhanced this year, which would be 8.25m tonnes from last year’s target of 6.2m tonnes.

The committee directed the Punjab government to operationalise all 382 wheat procurement centres by the end of March, while Sindh was asked to operationalise its 517 procurement centres by the middle of March.

Published in Dawn, March 5th, 2020