Pakistan sells 750,000 tonnes of wheat for export

DUBAI, Feb 18 (Reuters): Pakistan has sold around 750,000 tonnes of wheat ready for export with a price range of around $188 to $200 a tonne, free-on-board, grain exporter Seatrade group said on Saturday.

"Some of the wheat is being sold as milling wheat and other as feed ... Some is going by road to Afghanistan,"

Tayub Rafiq Balagamwala, director of corporate affairs told an industry event in Dubai.

Pakistan has been hardly visible in wheat export markets in past years with its main sales going to Afghanistan.

A bumper crop last year and large stocks led the Pakistani government to introduce a new export subsidy scheme in January which has led to a series of large export sales in the past month.

A Pakistani cabinet committee in December approved a programmeme to export 2 million tonnes of wheat in the current financial year, with 1.5 million tonnes coming from the state of Punjab and 500,000 tonnes from the state of Sindh.

Balagamwala expected most of the quantity dedicated for export to be sold in a few months.

Around 300,000 tonnes of the total sold quantity has gone to Afghanistan, he said. Of Pakistan's total exportable sugar, Balagamwala said around 650,000 tonnes have been traded.

A sizable quantity has gone to Taiwan and Myanmar, he said. "Sugar is going to a lot of places but especially to Taiwan and Yangon where it is then smuggled into China," he said.