Pakistan, Russia see positive signs for grain, oil deals

By Staff Reporter

ISLAMABAD: Russia has offered Pakistan wheat and gas amidst soaring prices of fuel and commodities as the government struggles to make up for crops and food stocks washed away by catastrophic floods, which have also killed more than 1,500 people, a minister said on Saturday.

“Russia has said that it can provide us wheat because in the coming days as we may have shortages,” Defence Minister Khawaja Asif told a news briefing in Islamabad.

Asif’s remarks came two days after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Uzbekistan.

Some 3.6 million acres of cultivated land has been affected by the floods, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization. Crops yet to be harvested have been wiped out in part of the country, especially in the worst-hit southeastern province of Sindh. Many people have also seen their stores of wheat for the year washed away as their villages and homes flooded.

Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported on Friday that the wheat flour price increased on an average by 7.51 percent nationwide to Rs106.38/kg in the week that ended on September 15 compared to Rs98.95 in the prior week which ended on September 8.

Similarly, the wheat (grain) price surged 14 percent in a week to Rs88/kg compared to Rs77.42/kg in the prior week. Wheat prices have jumped 30 percent in the last three months.

Pakistan’s economy is already fragile and earlier this month, the International Monetary Fund agreed to a bailout that the country had negotiated before the floods, which have caused at least $13 billion of economic damage.

Wheat import has spiked 11-time to 622,515 tons in the first two-month (July-August) of the current fiscal year 2023 compared to 57,000 tons in the same two months of the last year.

Wheat import bill rose 19-time to $310.76 million in the two months under review compared to $16.46 million in the same two months of the last year.

“They (Russians) have said that they can give us gas. Russia said that they have gas pipelines in Central Asian countries and the pipelines could be extended to Pakistan via Afghanistan. These talks have taken place,” Asif said.

President Putin earlier said Russia can supply gas to Pakistan as necessary infrastructures are already in place.

“The issue is about pipeline gas supplies from Russia to Pakistan, which is also possible, which means part of infrastructure has already been created, meaning Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan. We have to solve the Afghan issue,” Putin was quoted as saying by Russia’s state-run TASS news agency.

Pakistan’s ties with Russia have moved past the bitter Cold War hostilities in recent years. The two countries also expressed commitment to expand and strengthen cooperation between their countries across all areas of mutual benefit, including food security, trade and investment, energy, defence, and security.