Sugar production likely to increase by 7.5mn tons

Federal Finance minister Shaukat Tarin has said that sugar production is likely to increase by 2 million tons from last year to 7.5 million tons.

The finance minister on Friday tweeted that sugar production is likely to increase by 2 million tons from last year to 7.5 million tons. As a result, Pakistan is back to a sugar surplus country.

Ex-mill  sugar prices are now around Rs81 per kg substantially lower from last year, he also mentioned in his tweet.

Sources said that sugar mills used to hide exact sugar production statistics in every season to the government despite the fact, governments relied on the industry statistics.

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) in November last year installed the Track and Trace system for around 80 sugar mills due to which the government has exact statistics of sugar production in this season.

Sources said that almost all the sugar mills cooperated with FBR with regard to installment of the Track and Trace system so that is why FBR is not only getting the real-time production information but also has the stock details of mills.

Sources said that sugar production is likely to touch 8 million tons during this season as the season would end next week.

It is pertinent to mention here that FBR had awarded the billion rupee contract to AJCL and Consortium for installing the Track and Trace in four sectors.

Sources said that FBR has focused on the sugar sector with regard to T&T due to the ongoing season adding that FBR will now press all the sectors including tobacco to install this system for real-time production.