Punjab and KP cut wheat import demand by 200,000 tonnes

Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have cut their wheat import requests by 200,000 tonnes between them, weeks after the provinces pressed the federal government to buy grain abroad.

Punjab has dropped from 250,000 to 150,000 tonnes. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has dropped from 200,000 to 100,000 tonnes. Sindh has held its request at 300,000 tonnes.

Why the U-turn

The provinces reduced their demand over concerns about disposing of imported stocks, which is the polite phrase for a problem the grain trade has been flagging since the summer: a province that imports wheat has to store it, then sell it into a market where domestic supply and the released stock compete with each other, usually at a loss to the exchequer.

The sequence is worth keeping straight. In July the federal government decided to import a million tonnes. In early September the Trading Corporation of Pakistan invited bids for 750,000 tonnes. The provinces, whose demand drove the number, are now asking for less than they did.

The price

Three companies accepted the lowest bid of $348.63 a tonne. At the interbank rate of Rs 277.42 to the dollar on 19 September, that is about Rs 96,720 a tonne, or Rs 9,672 per 100 kg, before freight inland, storage and handling.

Two suppliers raised their offered volumes sharply during the process: LDC from 110,000 to 250,000 tonnes, and Agro Crop from 55,000 to 250,000 tonnes.

What it means for the price of atta

Nothing immediately. Imported wheat lands at ports and moves into provincial reserves, and it is the release policy, not the import itself, that reaches the flour mill and then the chakki.

What the cut does change is the size of the buffer. A province that imports less is betting that its own procurement and the standing carryover will cover demand until the next harvest in April and May. If that bet is wrong, the correction shows up as a flour price rise in February and March, the traditional pinch months, rather than now.

Watch three things:

• Provincial release prices for wheat to flour mills, which are notified by the food departments and are the real lever on the shelf price.
• The support price for the 2027 crop, which the provinces set before sowing and which decides how much wheat the country grows next.
• Open-market rates in the Lahore, Multan and Karachi grain markets through the winter.

The oversight angle

The import programme is already under scrutiny. The Public Accounts Committee expressed displeasure over wheat import and procurement policy on 16 September, and the question the committee keeps returning to is why the country alternates between importing at world prices and sitting on stock it cannot move.

For household budgeting, inflation is the number that actually lands on you: CPI was 11.1 percent year-on-year in August, up from 9.2 percent in July. Food is a heavy weight in that basket, which is why wheat policy is not a farming story.