Wheat Crisis
It is known to everyone Pakistan could face a major wheat crisis by the end of December. The warning has come from the National Assembly standing committee on commerce. It also pointed out the serious mismanagement in the planning of wheat import that had caused shortages, leading to a big hike in flour prices. Although the private sector has imported over 300,000 tonnes of wheat and booked orders for another million tonnes or so. The corporation which is supposed to purchase 1.5m tonnes of cereal from the international market to fill the supply gap had to cancel the tender floated earlier this month because of high rates quoted by suppliers. The new hids received 300,000 tonnes of wheat are to be opened on 5 October. Wheat shipment will not reach here before the end of October even if everything goes according to plan. It was clear the country was facing a shortfall of 1.5m tonnes for the current market year and prices. The government wants to prevent the present shortages from morphing into a major crisis in winter.