MULTAN, May 20: While wheat growers are satisfied with the wheat export policy of the government, the flour mills in the country, particularly the Sindh government, want its withdrawal.
The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet had, through its decision in December last, allowed the export of 500,000 tons of wheat through private sector.
Mujahid Khurshid, secretary-general of the Pakistan Flour Mills Association, demanded immediate withdrawal of the decision. He said the association was not against the export of surplus production but first the local consumption target should be achieved.
He said since the Sindh government could not achieve its target, it had requested the withdrawal of the decision of wheat export while Punjab government also could not achieve its target due to the high price of wheat in the open market.
Mr Khurshid said the wheat procurement target of the Sindh government was 0.7 million tons while that of Punjab was three million tons.
He said that Afghanistan was the natural market for Pakistani flour where about 500,000 tons of flour could be exported but the government had banned the export of flour. “Hence, we have lost the market.”
Flourmills, he said, could not store a big quantity of wheat due to the high mark-up of bank loans. He said that on the one hand the government had allowed the export of wheat, but on the other hand it was not permitting the flourmills to export flour.
He denied reports of smuggling of flour to Afghanistan and Iran. “The flour is cheaper in Iran because of the subsidy factor. So there is no question to export of flour to Iran.”
The mills could not rely on the government assurances of prompt wheat supply to mills throughout the year. “If the government fails to achieve its procurement target, it can’t feed the mills.”
He said that the PFMA desired that the farmers should get good return for their produce. He said when the government decided to import wheat from India two years back, the association had opposed it for being anti-farmers.
Rasheed Ahmed Khan Langah, president of the Kisan Board, Rajanpur, said the export policy had brought the wheat price to a reasonable level.
The price of 40kg wheat is hovering around Rs450 in several parts of Punjab against the official price of Rs425. The cost of wheat production per 40kg, according to Minfal, is Rs417. The official support price, according to growers, does not bring them relief.
Mr Langah said the government should take notice of illegal export of flour to Quetta and Vesh (Chaman), the cities known for having big warehouses.
Dr Suhail Alam, president of the Kisan Wing Pakistan of the People’s Party, Muzaffargarh, said the situation was encouraging for farmers this year.
He said last year growers in the area had to sell their wheat at a price ranging between Rs360 and Rs370.
Khawaja Muhammad Shoaib of the Farmers Vision Forum praised the decision of exporting 500,000 tons of wheat but declared it insufficient.
He said since the country had been surpassing the target for the last three years, there was a need to establish a federal wheat board having representation of all stakeholders.
The Sindh government had purchased about 600,000 tons of wheat as against the target of 700,000 tons while the Punjab government could procure 2.2 million tons as against the target of three million tons, he said.
Similarly, he said the Passco had procured one million tons of wheat as against its 1.3 million tons target.
He said the demand for the withdrawal of wheat export decision from the Sindh government and the Flour Mills Association was unjustified in a situation when the country was able to export more than one million tons of wheat.
“More than 24 million tons of wheat production is expected this year while the estimated consumption in the country is about 21.5 million tons that warrants the government to devise a policy to export surplus production at an opportune time to benefit wheat growers”.
Keeping in view the surplus wheat production, he said the government should arrange the pest-free silos of international standard to save a large quantity of the grain from being damaged.