Wheat smuggling may surpass 2.1 million tons figure

The wheat smuggling into Afghanistan is likely to surpass 2.1 million tons figure during this year. Addressing a press conference, Chairman of Pakistan Flour Mills Association-Sindh Circle Choudhry Anser Javed said although about 700, 000 tons wheat flour was smuggled every year to Afghanistan, Central Asian States and Iran via Chaman border.
The situation could be worse this year as this figure was expected to reach 2.1 million tons. He also said the wheat being smuggled into Afghanistan at half of its import price. He said if the wheat smuggling was not checked, the commodity prices in the local market would rise phenomenally.
Former presidents of the association, including Muhammad Yousuf Choudhry and Khalid Mehmood, were also presents on the occasion. Javed said that on the one hand, wheat was being imported at 500 dollars per ton to meet the local demand and, on the other, it was being smuggled at half of its import price. The Chairman of Flour Mills Association urged the government to allow the import of wheat for exporting it to Afghanistan.
He warned that if the government did not take brisk action for stopping the wheat flour smuggling, the price of the commodity was feared to surge to unaffordable levels. "Wheat flour price has increased Rs 150 per 100 kilogram sack during the last one week and if the present situation continued in a similar way, this could go further up," he added.
Expressing fears, Javed said that on the complaints of smuggling to Afghanistan, Punjab had stopped wheat supply to Sindh, which had also created rifts between flour mills associations of the two provinces. He added that Punjab had stopped Wheat supply to Sindh several times in the past on similar grounds.
He criticised the 2008 wheat procurement policy, saying that it might put negative impact on the next wheat crop. He demanded of the government to rein in the wheat flour smugglers. He said that the government should announce next year's wheat purchase price immediately and growers should be given increased rates on its sale so that they could be encouraged for higher production in the country.