ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of National Food Security and Research (MNFS&R) has proposed doubling of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Food Bank wheat reserves from 40,000 Metric Tons (MTs) to 80,000 MTs without having any financial implications, official sources told Business Recorder.

SAARC secretariat established SAARC Food Bank in 2007 (regional food security reserves) for the SAARC member countries to cope with food shortage and emergencies. Accordingly, PASSCO is maintaining 40,000 MTs of wheat reserves as Pakistan’s share in the SAARC Food Bank.

During the 16th SAARC Summit held in Bhutan in April, 2010, the Heads of States of the SAARC countries agreed to double the quantum of the SAARC Food Bank Reserve. The 7th and 9th SAARC Food Bank Board meetings urged Pakistan to double the quantum of Food Bank Reserve as had already been done by other members.

PASSCO is maintaining one million of national strategic wheat reserve as approved by the ECC of the Cabinet as well as the quantity of 40,000 tons of wheat reserve for SAARC Food Bank. Government of Pakistan meets the financial cost of maintaining these wheat reserves. The carrying cost of both of these reserves for wheat crop 2016 has been estimated at Rs 4.44495 billion and Rs 177.79 million respectively.

The draft summary was earlier shared with the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Finance and PASSCO, presenting the proposal that the quantum of the SAARC Food Bank may be doubled from 40,000 MTs to 80,000 MTs and may be adjusted in the existing quantum of one million tons of national strategic reserves to PASSCO without having further financial implications. While Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Finance endorsed the proposal, PASSCO proposed that the SAARC Bank Reserves be doubled to 80,000 MTs in addition to national strategic reserve of one million tons contending that the proposed course of action would reduce the strategic reserves to 0.92 MTs which will be sufficient for less than 13 days.

The Ministry of National Food Security has endorsed the proposal on the ground that Article-VIII of the agreement for establishing the SAARC Food Bank, entitles the member countries to immediately withdraw food grains from its assessed reserves, in case of emergency, under intimation to the member countries and board. As such, this would not place any constraint on the policy space available to the Ministry, while simultaneously saving the GoP from any additional financial liability.—MUSHTAQ GHUMMAN