Followed by arrival of new crop and offloading of stocks by Pakistan Storage and Services Corporation (Passco), the wheat grain price has witnessed a massive decline of Rs 400 per 100 kilogram bag in the domestic market. Market sources told Business Recorder on Wednesday that wheat price in the local market was gradually declining mainly due to arrival of new wheat crop in Sindh.
Wheat harvesting has started in several parts of Sindh and growers are offering new crop at lower prices compared to previous year crop, they said. In addition, Passco has also offloaded some 0.6 million tons of wheat during the last two months aimed at avoiding any shortage of the commodity in market. These two factors have reduced the rising demand of wheat grains by flour millers and resulted in massive decline in the commodity”s price in the domestic market.
Wheat prices have fell by Rs 400 per 100 kilogram bag in the local commodity market. With current decline wheat grain of new crop is being traded between Rs 2,900 to Rs 2,950 per 100 kilogram bag in the domestic market compared to Rs 3,300 per bag a week earlier. While, prices of previous year crop have decline by Rs 200 per 100 kg bag to Rs 3,100 per bag in the market.
The wheat price of current season is being traded even below the support price, announced by the government for procurement of wheat crop during this season. In January this year, wheat prices surged to Rs 3,500 per 100 kg bag due to short supply by the provincial food departments, however the market situation improved in mid of January, when Passco offloaded some 0.2 million stock in the domestic market.
Later, Passco also announced to offload another lot of 0.6 million ton wheat to stabilise prices in the domestic market. Although, this step put some positive impact on the prices, however the delayed decision resulted in higher prices of wheat products at the retail level. Despite the decline in wheat grain price, consumers are compelled to buy wheat products at higher rates due to profit taking at different levels.
