The Food Corporation of India (FCI) is expected to float a tender for export of 5 million tonne of wheat by private players during the next few days.The regional offices of the corporation in the key producing states of Punjab and Haryana have been asked to prepare the tender for wheat exports at a fixed sale price of R1,484 per quintal.
The wheat would be exported from the corporation’s 2011-12 stocks. The export price offered is at the same level at which excess wheat is being offered under the FCI?s Open Market Sale Scheme (OMSS) for private traders. In the last fiscal, FCI exported more than 3.1 mt of wheat through agencies such as PEC and STC.
At present, FCI has wheat stocks of more than 24 mt from previous years and the procurement for the current year (2013-14) is on. The government has set a target of procuring more than 44 mt of wheat during the next two months against 39 mt purchased in the previous year.
?We want to export some of the excess stocks of wheat during the next few months,? an FCI official told FE.
However, softening of the international price of wheat could spoil the prospects of FCI’s wheat exports. In the global market, prices have remained sluggish during the last few months. The global price is in the range of $255-$256 a tonne against the offer prices of around $ 280 per tonne. However, officials say the government can’t reduce export prices as the corporation has been incurring costs for storing wheat.