Move may affect domestic roller flour milling industry in the long run. | |
| India has lifted 36 per cent import duty on wheat flour paving the way for free import of the commodity, a government notification said. The duty free import has been made effective from December 26. |
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| In October, India banned exports of wheat flour to boost domestic supplies. "The order will boost supplies in port cities," said an industry official. |
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| He, however, said such a move would be detrimental to domestic roller flour milling industry in the long run because they would become dependent on imports. |
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| Another industry official said the move was perhaps driven by the government's failure to import wheat through its latest tender floated by the State Trading Corporation. |
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| On Dec 22, the government scrapped the 350,000 tonnes wheat import tender citing high bid prices. The state-owned company received three bids in the range of $459-579 a tonne from global trading companies""Toepfer, Cargill and Glencore. |
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| "Failure to import wheat led the government to allow duty free wheat flour import," the officials said. India became a net wheat importer last year, after a gap of six years. |
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| India imported 5.5 million tonnes in 2006-07 to maintain its buffer stocks. In the current financial year, India had planned to import 2.3 million tonnes. Since April, 1.8 million tonnes of wheat import had been contracted. |
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| The country's wheat marketing year runs April-March. Analysts view the latest move as a cushion against any production shortfall in the wheat crop. Wheat, the main crop in rabi season (October-December), is harvested February onwards. |
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| Latest official sowing updates put wheat acreage till December 28 at 24.9 million hectares, down 5.3 per cent in comparison to the year-ago period. |
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| India's normal wheat acreage stands at 26.2 million hectares. The country's wheat production target has been fixed at 75.5 million tonnes for 2007-08. |
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| The climatic conditions in December-January, during the grain filling stage, would be crucial for the final output, said a farm expert. |
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