Pakistan unlikely to import sugar in 2011: minister

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is unlikely to import sugar this year because the country will have enough stocks to meet domestic requirements, food minister Nazar Muhammad Gondal said on Thursday.

"We will be self-sufficient in sugar and I am very confident that we will not need to import sugar this year," he told reporters Pakistan expects to export up to 3 million tonnes of wheat this year after a bumper 2009/10 crop and carryover from the previous harvest led to a domestic market surplus, Gondal said.

"We are expecting to export between 2 million tonnes and 3 million tonnes of wheat this year, and some wheat has already been shipped out," he told reporters.

US wheat futures clung to near 2-1/2 year highs on Thursday on worries that extremely cold weather in the United States might cause crop kill for winter wheat.