KARACHI: The price of wheat flour has increased by Rs 3 to Rs 57-58 per kg in Karachi despite the fact that the country has received hundreds of thousands of tons of imported grain.
Pakistan Flour Mills Association (PFMA) Chairman Asim Raza Ahmed said, “We are facing issues in transporting wheat from Sindh government’s warehouses to flour mills in the province.”
He said flour mills could transport only 30 percent of the released quantity this month due to a shortage of cargo transport, adding that that the remaining 70 percent of the grain was still stored in warehouses of the government.
The price in the retail market had dropped earlier to Rs 54-55 per kg from the current year’s peak of Rs 62. However, the PFMA chairman claimed that the price had remained stable at Rs 52 per kg in the retail market for the past seven to eight days in the metropolis.
Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported the price of average flour (quality number 2.5) at slightly over Rs 60 per kg in Karachi during the week ended November 26.
Sources said the provincial government of Sindh has been releasing around 8,000 tons of wheat per day from its buffer stock to flour mills in Sindh.
The latest increase in flour price (quality number 2.5) came despite a drop in wheat price by Rs 2-2.5 over the past two weeks, the source said.
In the open market, the prices of locally grown as well as imported wheat have declined by Rs 2 to Rs 50.25 and Rs 47.25 per kg respectively in the past two weeks, sources added. However, the government of Sindh was supplying locally grown wheat at Rs 36.875 per kg to the flour mills, sources disclosed.
The PFMA chairman said most of the cargo transport was engaged in delivering the imported grain from Karachi’s ports to Punjab where retailers were selling flour at Rs 43 per kg.
The Punjab government is giving subsidy on flour worth Rs 6.5 billion a month. Retailers in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan were selling flour at Rs 55-56 per kg, Ahmed added.
