Islamabad: Pakistan is witnessing a shortage of ghee and cooking oil in recent times as the country is moving forward to observe Ramadan month, media reports said on Friday.

The two staples are also going to be costlier from now on.

Already the rise of prices of wheat flour and chicken is disrupting the budget of households.

Producers are fast running out of palm oil, soybean oil and sunflower following banks’ reluctance in opening the letters of credit (LCs) and retiring documents for clearance of goods despite the fact that these raw materials were listed as essential items by the State Bank on Dec 27, 2022, reports Dawn News.

Lifting of 358,000 tonnes of edible oil from the Customs Bonded Warehouses has been suspended as banks are turning down requests for opening of LCs and retirement of documents.

The State Bank has been infor­med that commercial banks have conveyed to importers-cum-manufacturers that edible oil has been excluded from its list of ‘Essential Items’ with immediate effect, the newspaper reported.

Commenting on the situation, Pakistan Vanaspati Manufac­turers Association (PVMA) secretary general Umer Islam Khan pointed out that palm oil rate has already gone up to Rs14,000 per maund from Rs13,000.