LAHORE Pakistan is likely to spoil its surplus wheat owing to its high price as compared to the international market and substandard storage system, losing an opportunity to earn millions of dollars through its export. Experts feared that fresh imminent increase in the wheat support price will halt export of wheat and its products. At present, 5.5 million tons of wheat was lying in stores and open places with public sector departments while our requirement for next few months was only two million tons. They said 1.4 million tons of wheat was present only in Punjab and added that one of the prime reasons of piling up of this wheat stock was high prices. Former chairman of the Flour Mills Association, Asim Raza Ahmed, while talking to The Nation, claimed that wheat prices were already high in Pakistan as compared to other countries. Supporting his claim, he said Russia had sold wheat to Egypt and Iraq at the rate of $220 to $250 dollars per ton which in Pak rupees is Rs 22,000 per ton compared to Pakistani wheat price of Rs 23,750 per ton. He said that wheat was playing an important role in agriculture of Pakistan. Pakistan is not only self-reliant in this crop from the last three years but also exporting wheat. Pakistan exported 1.7 million tons of wheat and 1.3 million tons of wheat products this year and was competing on this front with Russia, Turkey, Australia, India and America. Some experts were of the view that the governments poor measures for utilizing bumper wheat crops may cause it billions of rupees losses again because of substandard ways of stocking of the commodity in packing material, which is not recommended by the experts. The upcoming wheat harvesting season will be overwhelmingly tremendous as the government increased the wheat support prices to Rs 1,050 per maund for encouraging the production of the commodity. But it will also be harmful for the growers, as they will fail to dispose of their commodity due to high rates. The country is expected to harvest more than 25 million tons of wheat in the next season as against the national requirement of 21 to 22 million tons, leaving surplus of about 3 to 4 million tons of wheat for export market, which should be exported to earn precious foreign exchange for the country. Experts said that the government must export wheat to different countries because it could compensate the expenditure of the government it carried out on the purchase of high cost commodity with high banks lending interest. They said that wheat should be preserved properly keeping in view the standards of exports market particularly the health safety complaints without contamination of chemicals emitted from polypropylene bags. They said that the government will fail to fetch foreign exchange from different countries through exports earning of the surplus wheat crop owing to its high rates, despite its quality is high as compared to rest of the world. They also advised the govt to stock the commodity in jute bags which is better than poly bags, as they get rotten after long preservation, they pointed out. They said the Natural Fibre bags are best alternatives for polypropylene bags with most suited features of storing edible products having moisture all over the globe. In this way, the government will be able to preserve wheat stock for longer period.