LAHORE: Amid a steep rise in the price of sugar across the country, the Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA) has denied reports of a shortage, saying shortages of the sweet are “a normal increase in the season”.
The price of wholesale sugar has seen a sharp rise as it is being sold at Rs 170 to Rs 180 in the retail market.
Dispelling the perception of short supply of sugar in the current season, the PSMA warned of a shortage next year due to low acreage, JEE News reported on Friday.
A spokesman for the Millers’ Association said the PSMA stressed that the increase in the price of sugar had nothing to do with the “decrease resulting from the last government’s permission to export it”.
An objective analysis of the data would reveal that at the end of the last sugar season 2021-22, Pakistan had a surplus of around one million tonnes. Because of this huge surplus, the government allowed the export of 250,000 tonnes of sugar, with another 250,000 tonnes likely to be exported.
It was also estimated that the 2022-23 sugar season would be good for production. However, during the harvest, the government realized that the yield was lower than expected. Thus, it put on hold the plan to allow further export of the commodity, the spokesperson said.
“Pakistan had stocks of 8.15 million tonnes at the start of the sugar season 2022-23, including last year’s carry-over stock, with some surplus for the entire year,” the PSMA official said. There was a satisfactory stock position,” said the PSMA official.
The Federal Board of Revenue and other relevant government agencies still maintain that our monthly consumption is 0.65 million tonnes. Consumption for the 9 months from November 2022 to July 2023 was 5.85 million tonnes. For the remaining three months, Pakistan will require 1.95 million tonnes while the stock availability in Pakistan is 2.3 million tonnes.
The spokesperson said that the perception of sugar shortage is not being understood at this time.
As far as the price of sugar is concerned, the PSM statement added that the international sugar market is highly volatile and ranges up to Rs 250 per kg. Hence, there is a lot of leakage across Pakistan’s borders.
Pakistani sugar is highly popular due to its high quality and low local prices, encouraging smuggling across western borders.
Another major reason behind the rise in sugar prices is the unpredictable dollar exchange rate, rise in POL prices, extremely high bank interest rates, rise in wages, continuous rise in market prices of all other commodities and electricity. Includes sky-high rates of
China is not an exception in these adverse market conditions.
Going forward, the PSMA spokesperson said the federal and provincial governments need to plan how to deregulate the highly regulated sugar sector and work on market forces such as rice, maize and other crops to make it Can be made internationally competitive.
“It is also not realized that 70 per cent of our total sugar is consumed by the commercial sector. Only 30 per cent of sugar is consumed by domestic consumers, of which 15 per cent is the poor segment.
The government only cares about the poorer sections of the society, and already has subsidy schemes for them like utility stores.
Talking about deregulation and calling it a hindrance to the growth of the sugar industry, the spokesperson also said that the courts are also against this over-regulation.
He concluded, “If this excessive regulation persists, it will result in further decline in sugarcane cultivation and the government will have to spend billions of dollars to meet the shortfall in domestic sugar production.” “
