The wheat and flour price crisis in Pakistan’s largest city continues to persist, with industry representatives warning of further increases amid supply delays and rising costs.
Chairman of the Flour Mills Association, Abdul Junaid, said the government-supplied wheat lacks nutritional quality and is being mixed with new wheat to produce flour that is unaffordable for the general public. He blamed delays by the Sindh government in supplying wheat to flour mills for pushing prices higher across Karachi.
Junaid said late deliveries of official wheat have intensified price pressures in both wholesale and retail markets, creating fresh risks of further increases. He added that the Karachi commissioner has been formally informed about the issue of untimely wheat supply to flour mills.
According to him, the association has also held an important meeting with the Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Traffic to ensure smooth and timely transportation of wheat. He noted that the continued delay in the supply of official wheat has contributed to persistent price hikes. Currently, old government wheat is priced at Rs80 per kilogram, while newly added wheat costs around Rs110 per kilogram.
He said that due to these input costs, flour supply in the wholesale market cannot become cheaper, while pricing mechanisms in the market remain largely self-determined.
Meanwhile, Chairman of the Wholesale Grocers Association, Rauf Ibrahim, said the Karachi commissioner is expected to issue a new list of flour prices within the next one or two days. However, he pointed out that in the open market, flour prices have already surged sharply over the past four months, rising from Rs55 per kilogram to around Rs110 per kilogram.
Rauf Ibrahim further said that wheat from Sindh is being transported to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, which could push demand higher. In such a scenario, open market wheat prices could rise from Rs110 to Rs125 per kilogram. He warned that the price of fine flour in Karachi could climb to as high as Rs145 per kilogram in the coming days.