Wheat, rice futures ban to continue : Sharad Pawar

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NEW DELHI : Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar on Wednesday said the government will not lift a ban on futures trading in rice and wheat and will continue duty-free imports of crude palm oil.

Speaking to reporters here he said "There is no plan to allow futures in wheat and rice”.

Earlier, the government scrapped an export tax on basmati rice and lowered the floor price for overseas sales, the latest in a series of cautious moves to ease controls imposed in the last two years amid fears of shortages and inflation.

With forecasts for bumper harvests of winter-sown crops and prices falling, some trade officials had seen the government allowing resumption in futures trading in the two grains, halted two years ago amid criticism it was fanning prices.

High food and crude oil prices pushed India's wholesale price index, its most commonly watched price barometer, to a touch under 13 percent in early August, but it has more than halved since then and economists expect it to fall to 1-2 percent by March.

India recently slapped a 20-percent import tax on crude soyoil, continuing to allow duty-free imports of crude palm oil.

India, the world's biggest vegetable oil buyer after China, imports almost half of its annual vegetable oil consumption of about 11 million tonnes.

The country buys palm oil from Malaysia and Indonesia and soyoil from Brazil and Argentina.