Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin on Wednesday directed to immediately ban export of perishable food items amid fears of further spike in food inflation in Pakistan due to hike in the international markets, says Tribune.
The minister repeated instructions at least for the third time in a meeting of the National Price Monitoring Committee (NPMC), which he chaired to review the prices trends.
“The finance minister directed the Ministry of Commerce to expedite the process of banning export of perishable commodities in consultation with Ministry of National Food Security and Research for the next three months to ensure availability of such commodities at an affordable price to the consumers,” stated the finance ministry.
However, in the last NPMC meeting, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) had informed the finance minister that during the past two months there was no export of tomatoes and onions from Pakistan. Last week, the commerce ministry had also told the finance minister that the food ministry did not move a summary for banning the exports.
The finance ministry stated that the decision to ban perishable goods has been taken in view of seasonal variations as well as rapidly evolving situation in Afghanistan.
In addition to exports, huge quantities of wheat, sugar, wheat flour and perishable goods are smuggled to Afghanistan in spite of the fact that the country has been importing highly expensive wheat and sugar.
