10 Oct 2007�

KUALA LUMPUR: Consumers have to brace themselves for a shortage of wheat flour next month because millers cannot afford higher wheat prices.�

Flour Millers Association of Malaysia chairman Teh Wee Chye said the industry was reaching a critical stage as it needed to replenish stocks.

He said that without an immediate price adjustment, millers would not be able to convince the banks to finance their wheat procurement.�

�Flour millers are losing money on every bag of general purpose flour sold because of government-imposed price controls,� he said.�

Teh said millers nationwide had signed an urgent letter to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi informing him of the �precarious� flour situation and urged the Government to take immediate action to avert a looming crisis.�

He said millers also held numerous discussions with the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry over the past few months and were awaiting a decision.�

He said wheat futures had almost doubled in the past five months as production of winter wheat suffered in the northern hemisphere followed by another drought in Australia.�

This has led to demand exceeding supply in four successive years while world wheat inventory had reached a historic low, he added. �

Malaysia, which does not grow wheat, imports about 1.2 million tonnes of the grain a year and that produces about 860,000 tonnes of flour. �

Plain wheat flour is fixed at RM1.35 per kilo, after the Government raised the price by 15 sen a kilo in May, the first increase in a decade.�