Islamabad: The government on Monday decided to put the decision on hold for sugar exports in an attempt to keep the commodities price stable for the holy month of Ramazan. Authorities had feared that the cartels or influential sugar mill owners would intervene and artificially inflate the prices of sugar to earn billions.
Earlier, the Sugar Advisory Board (SAB) had suggested the government to allow export of 1.2m tons of sugar without any proscribed time limitations. As per sources, the Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA) has provided assurances to the authorities that the commodities price won’t be increased and efforts will be made to keep them stable.
The government earlier had increased the deadline for the export of the allocated quota of sugar due to failure of the millers to meet the target. According to an APP report, the sugarcane production in the country had reached a historical high of 73.6 million tons during this year, showing 12.4 per cent increase as compared to 2016. The sugarcane production touched 65.5 million ton mark during 2016 and comfortably exceeded target of 67.5 million ton by a considerable margin of 9 percent.
In a meeting held on 25th May of the inter-ministerial committee, the millers and SAB’s recommendations were taken into consideration. The committee was apprised by the Ministry of Industries and Production that SAB had shared production estimates for FY 2016-17 to be 7.043m tons alongside a carryover stock of 0.996m tons. The total stock of the commodity would reach 8.039m tons. From this 5.1m tons was forecast to be consumed domestically, cushion stock of 0.630m tons would be kept as backup for 45 days. As per government’s decision, 0.42m tons of the commodity would be allowed to be exported leaving a surplus of 1.844m tons. From this, 1.2m tons of sugar had been recommended by SAB to be exported without any time limitations.
