Indonesia has issued a permit to state plantation firm PT Perkebunan Nusantara XIV to import 14,000 tonnes of raw sugar to fill idle mill capacity due to an expected fall in the cane harvest, a senior trade ministry official said on Monday.
Alfred Tobago, import director at the Trade Ministry, said the permit would be valid until October. Last week, the trade ministry issued a permit for private sugar mill PG Gorontalo to import 33,050 tonnes of raw sugar.
The import permits for PG Gorontalo and PT Perkebunan Nusantara XIV are part of a government's plan to bring in more than 200,000 tonnes of raw sugar to optimise production capacity in domestic sugar mills.
With the import permits for the two sugar mills, the government has issued permits to import a total of 232,563 tonnes of raw sugar, said Tobu. But so far, the country has imported 78,000 tonnes of raw sugar.
Indonesia, Southeast Asia's largest buyer, needs to import a variety of sugars every year as domestic output lags demand. Officials say white sugar production in 2007 is likely to fall to 2.0-2.1 million tonnes from 2.3 million tonnes in 2006 due to dry weather. Indonesia consumes around 2.6 million tonnes of the sweetener a year and imports mainly from Thailand.