Punjab has asked the government for permission to export about 2.5 million tonnes of surplus wheat, provincial authorities said on Thursday, as the country prepares to plant the next crop. Pakistan, Asia's third-largest wheat producer, deferred plans in August to export 2 million tonnes of surplus wheat, after summer floods washed away at least 725,000 tonnes of the grain and raised concern about the next crop.
Traders say that despite flood damage, Pakistan still has a surplus for export as wheat stocks soared this year after a bumper crop of 23.86 million tonnes in 2009/10, with a carryover of 4.2 million tonnes from the previous crop. "We have written to the federal government to allow us to export surplus wheat and their reply is still awaited," Punjab's food minister, Chaudhry Abdul Ghafoor, told Reuters.
"We have extra stocks and then we will also have the next crop ready in a few months." Ghafoor did not have details but an official in his ministry said the Punjab government had 6 million tonnes of wheat in stocks, including 2.5 million tonnes in reserves that it sought to export.
Pakistan consumes about 22 million tonnes of wheat annually. Harvesting begins in April and continues through June. A senior finance ministry official in the federal government said last month any decision on wheat exports would be made after the sowing of the next crop, which has already begun in Punjab, the country's agriculture heartland and major wheat grower.
The planting season runs through December. Pakistan banned wheat exports in 2007 because of shortages and high prices in the domestic market. The central government this week set an ambitious target of 25 million tonnes of wheat from the 2010/11 crop, despite vast damage to farmland in Punjab and in southern Sindh province. Food experts are cautious about the next crop target as large parts of Sindh, which produces about 17 percent of Pakistan's wheat, remain underwater.