Govt agrees to cut flour millers' loans interest rate

ISLAMABAD - The Federal Government has accepted the flour millers demand to reduce interest rate on loans provided to them by banks and would most likely accept millers’ other demand of allowing them to export wheat flour and other wheat-based food products, in the coming days.
The flourmills had demanded from the government to bring down the interest rate for them to one digit (below 10 per cent). They had demanded this taking the plea that it was impossible for them to operate at a high interest rate and they were unable to procure wheat from the farmers due to non-availability of funds.
Well-placed sources told TheNation that the Ministry of Food and Agriculture had accepted their demand of reducing mark-up rate and was going to write a letter to State Bank of Pakistan for the purpose.
Sources said that the millers in a meeting with the Ministry officials had argued that Pakistan had ample wheat production this year that was much more than the country’s demand, so they should be allowed to export the wheat flour and other byproducts that would help in generating revenue for the country.
The millers had claimed that after meeting the country’s demand, 11 million tons of wheat were extra that could be exported in raw or finished form. According to official sources, that figure was not true as the preliminary estimates showed 23.3 million tons wheat production in the country. They said that as per preliminary estimates it was 1.3m tons extra than the total demand of 22m tons in the country.
Anyway they said that the final estimates were still to be evaluated and if there would be a wheat production more than 24m tons, the government would most likely allow the millers to export their products.
When approached, Joint Secretary Food, Seerat Asghar, said that presently the govt had not taken any decision on the issue and had written to the Punjab Govt to provide the wheat production figures. Answering to a question he said that the situation was totally different from 2007 when previously wheat export decision was made.