Russia to ship 200,000MT quality wheat this month

ISLAMABAD: The wheat being shipped to Pakistan under the GtoG arrangement this month will be far superior to the wheat being imported through the Trading Corporation of Pakistan, reveal official documents.

Amid the surging wheat prices in Pakistan, Russia is going to ship 200,000 metric tons of high standard wheat this month under GtoG arrangement in a bid to stabilize the prices of this essential product.

And the remaining part of wheat consignment would be imported from Russia sometime in December through the TCP tenders. After scrutiny, the winners would be announced. Pakistan needs a total import of 2.5 million tons of wheat out of which the TCP will import 1.5 million tons through tenders and one million tons by the private sector which has so far failed to import.

So, the government decided to import 200,000 tons of wheat from Russia under the GtoG arrangement this month to provide some solace to the end consumers. In the first phase, the TCP will import 300,000 tons of wheat for which it received sealed bids on Monday.

Under the tendered document, the TCP reserves the right to divert wheat cargo to Gwadar Port in case of bunching of ships at Karachi or PQA ports. Pakistan wants from Russia under GtoG settlement clean and wholesome wheat of normal size, colour and shape free from obnoxious smell, discoloration, admixture of deleterious substances including toxic weed seed and other impurities.

More importantly, the Russian wheat will contain 12.5 percent protein and 24 percent wet gluten. However, the wheat that TCP is to import will be having less protein of 10 percent only as against the 12.5 percent protein to be present in Russian wheat. And the wet gluten in wheat that the TCP is to import will be at 23 percent whereas Russian wheat is to have 24 percent gluten. The cost of Russian wheat will be around $279 per ton which is justifiably higher by $3 per ton than that of the TCP which is to be at $274 per ton.