Japan crisis to pull wheat prices down, says PAFMil

Consumers can expect flour prices to drop in the coming months after quake-devastated Japan – the second largest importer of wheat from the United States – posted a lower demand for wheat, pulling flour prices down. The price of wheat has gone down to $8 per bushel from a previous high of $10. Ric Pinca, executive director of the Philippine Association of Flour Millers (PAFMil), on Tuesday explained that price of wheat – a chief component of flour – has dropped due to the "stabilization" of the conflict in the Middle East as well as improving weather patterns in Australia, Russia, and Canada. "It will take about three months before we feel the drop in prices," Pinca however clarified. "The good news now is, we don’t expect prices to reach P1000 per bag." Given an unrelenting increase in wheat prices, PAFMil had earlier expressed fears that flour prices would shoot up to an all-time high of P1,000 a bag – from the current P880-P900 per 25-kg bag ex-mill price. Stable prices have also led bread manufacturers to put off plans to further raise the price of bread. A softening in sugar prices likewise averted possible increases in bread prices, said Filipino-Chinese Bakery Association president Antonio Lim Kit. "If the price of sugar continues to go down, we will make our computations and roll back the price of bread," Lim Kit added. The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) meanwhile has noted the price of sugar in retail outlets has started to reflect the price drop in mills. Traders now sell sugar at P58 a kilo from a high of P65 in previous weeks. Trade Secretary Gregory Domingo explained that as the sugar milling season has kicked in, warehouses are keeping the supply levels of the commodity on the high side, bringing the price down. "We hope that in the next two weeks, prices of sugar will go down further. Probably, [the price of sugar] will go down to P54 a kilo," Domingo added. — PE/VS, GMA News