Despite the fact that Pakistan is an agricultural country, the food and other crops' production is on the decline in the country, as during the current fiscal year the country also has missed its wheat production target by 1.5-2 million tonnes. Therefore, the country is compelled to spend more foreign exchange on the import of food commodities and the food import bill has surged by 51 percent during the first 11 months of the current fiscal year.
After the current upsurge, the food items import bill has reached new peak level of 3.86 billion dollars during July-May of 2008 as compared to 2.55 billion dollars in the same period last year.
The food items import comprised milk, cream, milk food for infants, wheat, dry fruits, and nuts, tea, spices, soyabean oil, palm oil, sugar, pulses, and other items.
Wheat and palm oil imports are chief contributor to the rising food import bill, which share in the overall food import stood at 58 percent. The combine imports of wheat and palm oil have gone up 158 percent during the July-May period of the current fiscal year.
The import of wheat and palm oil surged to 2.244 billion dollars during the first 11 months in the current fiscal year against the imports of 868 million dollars in the corresponding period last fiscal year, depicting an increase of 1.376 billion dollars.
Experts believed that the import bill of food group in the future would further raise due to the continuous import of commodities, including wheat, sugar, palm oil, pulses, dry fruits, tea, etc.
They said the government should focus on the agricultural growth by using new technologies to meet the local demand for wheat, pulses and other food items.
While the prices of food commodities also on the rise in the international front due to the shortfall in the crops and increasing demand.
The food import bill during May 2008 went up by 85 percent to 342.21 million dollars over the 184.67 million dollars in the same period last year. However, the imports during May 2008 were less than April 2008, as during April 2008 food import stood at 486.8 million dollars.