"According to our calculations the loss will be somewhere around one million tonnes which means that the production will be about 18 million tonnes against our target of 19 million," the agriculture ministry official told Reuters from Islamabad.

Officials estimate domestic consumption during 1998/99 at 21 million tonnes, so imports of around three million tonnes may be needed.

Pakistan has bought 1.54 million tonnes of wheat from the United States, Australia and Canada since July.

The ministry official said rains in the past few days had helped the crop but he added that a longer-than-usual dry spell extending from November to early January would result in about a 20 percent output loss from rain-fed areas.

"Baarani (rain-fed) areas accounted for about two million tonnes of wheat last year, so a 20 percentloss would mean a cut in production by about 400,000 tonnes," he said. He said sowing in irrigated areas, which accounted for about 17 million tonnes last year, was almost complete but added that delayed sowing and harvesting of sugarcane meant that some areas were not available for sowing wheat.

"We will have a shortfall in production of about 5 percent or over 800,000 tonnes in the canal-irrigated areas because of the delayed sugarcane sowing," he said.

He said sowing was complete in about 99 percent of the 20million acres (eight million hectares) of area targetted for this year.

He said because of a bad cotton crop, a number of farmers had replaced cotton plants with wheat without waiting for the second cotton harvest.

"The cotton crop factor and recent rains together might likely help boost some production, so instead of a loss of over 1.2 million tonnes we are looking at a loss of around a million," he said.

Rana Musavir Ali, a wheat farmer in Sadiqabad town in Punjab province, said recentrains, cloudy weather and lower-than-usual temperatures were also likely to help the wheat crop.

"We need some more rain before February 15 and if the weather remains as cold as it is now the maturity period of the grain will extend which would mean better and heavier grains," Ali said.

Pakistan set the 19 million tonne output target in October,against an actual output of 18.7 million in 1997/98.

Pakistan will also receive about 200,000 tonnes of U.S.White wheat under a deal to compensate Pakistan for U.S. F-16 fighter jet purchases that were paid for but never delivered.