July- November 2010-11: pulses import registers increase of over 60 percent

Recent catastrophic floods pushed the country to import over 60 percent more pulses in the last five months to avoid the possible food shortage in the country, importers said on Thursday. The floods ravaged standing crop of green mong bean largely in Punjab province, making the country import the commodity after some seven years to meet the local demand, they added.
The floods devastation downwards Punjab and Sindh provinces, destroyed huge cropped land, killing hundreds of people and left million other homeless, created huge food demand in areas where normally grain remains surplus whole year.
"The worst-ever situation forced the country import pulses at 100 percent increased value for the global market is high," said Chairman of Karachi Wholesalers Grocers Association (KWGA) and pulses importer, Anis Majeed.
He said pulses on global market were available for $1,000 a ton, costing the local importer dearly during the last few months. "The global market price impact made pulses costlier for Rs135 per kg on wholesale market up from Rs60 in last March-April period," he pointed out.
In terms of volume, pulses import posted a rise of 61 percent during July-November period of the fiscal year 2010-2011, according to official statistics.
With the current increase, pulses import has reached 0.269 million tons in the first five months of current fiscal year as compared to 0.167 million in the same period of last fiscal year.
However, Anis ruled out rise in pulses import in future, saying the country would soon have ample crop to feed the local market.
The Pulses import, terms of value, has surged 100 percent to 181.633 million dollar in the first five months of current fiscal year as compared to 90.689 million dollars in the corresponding period of last fiscal year, statistics added.
On a month on month basis, import of pulse posted a surge of 143 percent to 38.799 million dollars in November 2010 as against of the commodities' import of 15.989 million dollars in November 2009, according to statistics.
Chairman KWGA said the country had imported pulses from Kenya, Myanmar and Tanzania ranging over 100 percent in the last five months.
He said the country was self-sufficient in green mong bean for the last seven years, but recent floods havocked on all standing crops in the major producing province. "Channa crop could not yield grain this year for rainless period, as a result the country faced 0.15 million tons shortage, which had to be met through the commodity import, Anis Majeed said.
However, he was shocked about the government's fresh move of withdrawing price increase in petroleum products, saying, "the government will increase prices of something else to offset the effect, as a result, inflation will continue to soar".