At a time when the country is harvesting bumper wheat crop and the government is in a fix to clear wheat glut, the Economic Coordination Committee of the Cabinet has allowed import of wheat products into the country. The country is producing bumper wheat crop this year though winter rains partially damaged the crop in parts of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.The committee has lifted the complete ban on the wheat import, which was imposed a couple of months ago,but has raised the regulatory duty from 20 to 25percentto discourage the import. The government has enhanced the regulatory duty in a bid to protect local farmers at the expense of local consumers against falling international prices.
Earlier, the government had set a target of 6.6m tonnes of wheat procurement by the provinces and Passco for 2014-15 at a cost of Rs222billion.The ban has been lifted to comply with the World Trade Organisation rules under which import of food items cannot be denied and WTO wing of the commerce ministry is looking into the status of the regulatory duty on the import of wheat products. According to Sikandar Hayat Khan Bosan, the federal minister for national food security and research, though rains created issues at some places, yet wheat output target is not difficult to be achieved. The Federal Committee on Agriculture has set a target of 26 million tonnes wheat production and the country harvested 25.29 million tonnes of wheat in the last season. Pakistani farmers grow only one wheat crop a year which starts in October with harvests from March. The wheat acreage remains between 8.5 million and 9.0 million hectares. The WTO’s agreement on agriculture says no country can ban the import of wheat or wheat products whereas the GATT says that a country can ban certain products with exceptions. This situation can be exploited in favour of the country if the government adopts the option of value added products. Pakistan is one of the major wheat producing country and it can supply ready meal to half of the world population. The countries, which are less developed with less wheat production than Pakistan, have introduced international brands and are doing billions of dollar businesses. Despite an agriculture country, Pakistan imports agriculture products from various countries including India which is just a crazy option.
Instead of importing biscuits, animal food and flour, the country should find international markets to export such products.