Federal Secretary Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock, Ismael Qureshi, has invited Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA) representatives on Tuesday (today) to discuss the prevailing crisis in sugar industry.
The PSMA spokesman said here on Monday that the PSMA representatives would brief the secretary about the situation emerged after the market crash in the middle of crushing season. He said the Federal Secretaries Committee on Sugar along with APCOM had fixed ex-factory sugar price at Rs 31 per kg after calculating the overall increase of 33 percent in minimum support price of sugarcane and minimum wages announced by the government.
However, the sugar prices could not cross the figure of Rs 28 per kg and almost hit the rock-bottom after two tenders of 25,000 MT quantities each, by the Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) in violation of the agreement between PSMA and the Secretaries Committee which destroyed the total market sentiment, he added.
The spokesman said undue announcement of tender and release of sugar by the TCP to the market played havoc with sugar prices and market crashed immediately and failed to recover the price of sugarcane even.