Pakistan confirms PASSCO wind-up despite profits in eight of past ten years
The government has confirmed in the National Assembly that it will wind up the Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation, even though the state wheat body reported profits in eight of the past ten financial years.
The federal government has confirmed that it will proceed with winding up the Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation (PASSCO), the state-owned body long responsible for buying, storing and distributing wheat for national reserves. The confirmation came in the National Assembly on Friday, in a written reply that also set out the corporation’s financial record over the past decade.
Minister for National Food Security and Research Rana Tanveer Hussain told the House that the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) had approved the winding-up on 9 December 2025, and that the federal cabinet had ratified the decision on 23 December 2025. He was responding to a question from MNA Shahida Rehmani, who had sought details of the corporation’s performance and the reasons for closing it.
The figures presented to the Assembly show a mixed but mostly profitable record. PASSCO reported a profit after tax in eight of the ten financial years from 2016-17 to 2025-26, with losses in only two years. It earned Rs343.19 million in 2016-17 and Rs408.71 million in 2017-18, before its profit rose to Rs1.59 billion in 2018-19 and Rs6.02 billion in 2019-20, followed by Rs4.05 billion in 2020-21.
The corporation then slipped into a loss of Rs862.48 million in 2023-24, and that loss widened sharply to Rs20.48 billion in 2024-25. In 2025-26, however, it returned to a profit of Rs6.02 billion, according to the figures submitted with the minister’s reply. The contrast between that recent return to profit and the decision to close the body is at the heart of the debate now surrounding the move.
The minister argued that commercial profit alone was not the right measure of PASSCO’s performance. He said its finances had been shaped by government-mandated wheat procurement, storage, financing and carrying costs, rather than by purely commercial decisions. On that basis, he told the House, the organisation should not be judged solely on whether it made or lost money in a given year.
PASSCO was created to maintain strategic wheat reserves and to supply wheat to deficit areas, to the armed forces and during emergencies. The minister acknowledged that role in his reply, while saying the government now intended to manage food security through a different institutional arrangement. He did not, however, give details of the proposed new institution, how it would be funded, or the timetable for setting it up.
The closure forms part of a wider shift in wheat policy. The minister said the move was aimed at reducing government spending on wheat procurement and storage, increasing competition and encouraging private investment in the sector. That shift began under the Interim National Wheat Policy 2025-26 and is being carried forward through the National Wheat Policy 2026-30, moving towards a more market-based system in which private firms play a larger role in procurement, storage, transport and trade.
For the transition period, the government says existing PASSCO stocks are being used to meet provincial wheat requirements, and imports will be arranged where necessary. The plan also includes maintaining federal and provincial wheat reserves and importing wheat through the Trading Corporation of Pakistan to cover confirmed shortages, rather than relying on PASSCO as the buyer of last resort.
Parliament was also told separately that, following PASSCO’s dissolution, letters had been sent to provinces and relevant institutions for the distribution of available wheat stocks, with supplies going to Balochistan, Azad Kashmir and other areas. A digital dashboard has been introduced to track wheat movement, the receiving province and delivery details, in an effort to make the supply chain more transparent during the handover.
Officials have pointed to administrative and financial strains in explaining why the old model could not continue. The parliamentary secretary for food security told the House that PASSCO had declined partly because some provinces had not paid its dues and bills on time, and said private companies would be linked with the ministry and monitored so that supply and distribution remained effective.
What remains unclear is the precise shape of the replacement system. Until the government publishes the structure, funding and start date of the alternative reserve mechanism, farmers, flour mills and provincial governments will be watching closely to see whether the new arrangements can match PASSCO’s old role in a poor harvest or a supply shock. For now, the government’s message is that food security arrangements will continue, but through different hands.
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