ISLAMABAD   -  National Assembly Standing Committee on Commerce has expressed serious concerns over the government’s decision to import the wheat at the time when local crop has started arriving in the market. 

Chairman standing committee on commerce Syed Naveed has termed it a ‘Recipe for Disaster’. During a briefing on ‘import of wheat’ by Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP), he further added that the figures shows that the imported wheat is more expensive than the local market, consequences will start next year when nobody will be ready to sow the crop. 

The government has recently decided to import four million metric tons of wheat this year to meet the domestic consumption requirements. A summary will now be presented before the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet for formal approval. 

Syed Naveed Qamar was chairing 21st meeting of the standing committee on commerce on Thursday in the parliament house, Islamabad. He said that by this permanent cycle of import of wheat, the government is providing incentives to foreign farmers instead our own growers and this situation is against whole agriculture sector and the economy of Pakistan. The committee invited the secretary, ministry of national food security and research for a briefing on wheat, in the next meeting.  

The Chairman TCP briefed the standing committee on commerce that as per given target by the government, the TCP has imported 2.16 million MT wheat through international tendering and PASCO. 30 bulk vessels of TCP arrived from October 2020 to March 2021. Tenders for additional 300,000MT are floated by TCP. 

The committee also discussed the issues relating to import of cotton. The ministry of commerce informed the committee that due to less cotton production, domestic production of cotton yarns has remained low which resulted yarn shortage and subsequently high yarn prices. Value-added sector is not able to cover yarn to materialise export orders. 

The standing committee observed a continuous decline of cotton production since FY 2015-16. The committee constituted a sub- committee on the matter. The sub-committee will present its report in 30 days. 

The meeting was attended by Ali Khan Jadoon MNA, Khurram Shehzad MNA, Mian Muhammad Shafiq MNA, Wajiha Akram MNA, Sajida Begum MNA, Usman Ibrahim MNA, Rana Iradat Sharif Khan MNA, Rasheed Ahmed Khan MNA, Tahira Aurangzeb MNA, and  Shaza Fatima Khawaja MNA.