Iran on Wednesday, July 25, rejected an offer to purchase wheat from Pakistan despite extensive damage to its agricultural sector following a fourth consecutive year of drought, the state IRNA news agency reported.
During a meeting with visiting Pakistani Commerce Minister Abdul Razik Daud, Iran's Minister of Reconstruction Mahmud Hugati asserted that Pakistani wheat does not correspond with "international standards from a sanitary point of view," and rejected the offer to purchase 200,000 tons of wheat.
Hugati said Tehran would reconsider the offer once Pakistan attains the necessary international sanitary standards, ignoring claims by Daud that the "commercial balance between the two countries is not equal."
Iran, suffering from its fourth consecutive year of drought, had recently announced that it was looking to purchase some 10 million tons of wheat, five million of which were to be imported. Iran's annual consumption rate of wheat lies at some 15 million tons. ― (AFP, Tehran)
© Agence France Presse 2001
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
