Hike in flour, onion prices adds to consumers’ woes in Karachi

Flour millers in Karachi recently increased the prices of flour by up to Rs275 per 50kg bag, while the cost of onions skyrocketed to Rs150-180 per kilogramme, up from Rs110-150 a week prior. The price hike affects various varieties of roti, with naan, sheermal, and taftaan now costing Rs5-10 more per piece. This price surge comes ahead of the arrival of one million tonnes of imported wheat, but the Karachi Wheat Importers Association head, Rauf Ibrahim, expresses concern.

He notes that only seven to eight months remain until the new wheat crop arrives, and the TCP has yet to issue an international tender, which would take two to three months to complete. Ibrahim calls for flour millers to import the grain themselves and set quotas for each mill, as the country needs over four million tonnes of wheat.

Meanwhile, the Balochistan crop currently feeds the entire country, but the arrival of Sindh's new crop will only reach markets by the end of September and October. Afghan onions, which helped meet the supply-demand gap, have been suspended for months, and Iranian onions are of mediocre quality.