![]() The annual wheat production in the country has ranged from 21m tonnes to 25m tonnes over the last 10 years. He, however, added the bureau might have committed an error and reported the export of wheat by-products as that of wheat. “We are investigating how this happened despite a ban on wheat exports,” the official said. In the last year of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government (2017-18), a total of 1.19m tonnes of wheat was exported, which is the highest quantity to be exported in the last 10 years.ĭespite a ban, data from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics shows that between July and Dec (2019-20) a total of 48,083 metric tonnes of wheat was exported. The remaining quantity of 526,487 metric tonnes exported was the outcome of previous government’s decision that was implemented in letter and spirit by the incumbent government. He said the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government allowed the export of 1m tonnes of wheat, but the total amount of the commodity exported came to 163,000 metric tonnes. But the details, according to the ministry official, paint a rather different picture that passes the buck to the previous government. The ban, however, was imposed on July 25, 2019.īetween July 2018 and June 2019, the total quantity of wheat exported was recorded at 689,487 metric tonnes. The response from the food security ministry came in the shape of a summary that was sent to the ECC three times in June, calling for a ban on exports. In May, a completely new scenario was being presented and panic began to set in. On April 17, it was reported that the country had a total of 28.16m tonnes of wheat, including leftovers from the previous year. The quotas allocated for export were 0.1m tonnes for PASSCO, 0.25m tonnes for Punjab and 0.15m tonnes for the Sindh government.Īs per the ECC decision, the export of wheat and wheat products was to be completed by April 30, 2019, while the entire process, including codal formalities of the exporters, was to be completed by June 30. On the first day of last year, the ECC headed by Mr Umar allowed export of another 0.5m tonnes of wheat. When the decision was made, it was reported that the country had a total wheat stock of 10m tonnes. The decision was taken on the request of the two provinces and PASSCO. The allocated quotas were 0.1m tonnes for PASSCO and 0.4m tonnes to be shared by Punjab and Sindh. “We have documentary proof about crop reporting, stocks and export permissions,” he said.īased on an assumption about surplus wheat in the country, former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Apthat is, before the last general elections - allowed the Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation (PASSCO) to export 0.5 million tonnes of “surplus wheat” at a rebate of $155 per tonne through the sea route.įollowing in Mr Abbasi’s footsteps, the ECC headed by then finance minister and present Planning Minister Asad Umar allowed export of 0.5m tonnes of wheat on Nov 20, 2018, with a subsidy amount of $105 per tonne. The decision to export wheat also comes from the provincial governments. “No matter how reliable this system is, we have to depend on it,” an official of the food security ministry told Dawn.Īccording to him, the federal government has no other system to estimate the crop or monitor production. Under the existing scheme, crop reporting systems in the provinces inform the federal government about the crop production and estimation data. Official says no other system exists to estimate crop or monitor output For instance, in 2007-08 wheat was exported in sizeable quantities at lower prices after it was wrongly estimated that the country would get a bumper crop.Ī similar error in estimating the size of the crop was committed in 2014, which led to panic buying and import of wheat in May and August of that year. ![]() ![]() Even that decision by the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet about the ban came late in the day after the food security ministry had sent several reminders to it.īackground interviews and conversations with officials of the relevant departments have revealed that reporting on crop estimates is often faulty and this has caused crises in the past as well. ISLAMABAD: Unreliable estimation of the size of the wheat crop and delays in taking appropriate decisions are being blamed for a wheat flour crisis that has been in the making for some time, Dawn has learnt from knowledgeable sources.Ī crisis had already begun to brew as far back as May last year when the authorities were alerted to the possibility of a wheat shortage, but the government took cosmetic measures like imposing a ban on export of the commodity.
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