LAHORE: Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (Punjab Zone) says that in a recent meeting of Sugar Advisory Board (SAB) in Islamabad, PSMA has reiterated its request to the government to allow 1.5 million metric tons of surplus sugar valuing one billion dollars in foreign exchange earnings for the country.

In a statement, a PSMA spokesman said that during the last SAB meeting, Federal Minister for Industries and Production Rana Tanveer Hussain appreciated PSMA’s helpful efforts to maintain sugar prices.

Sugar industry has long been appealing to the government to consider export of surplus sugar as it is facing huge losses due to increased costs of production and by incurring carrying costs on surplus stocks of crushing seasons of 2022-23 and 2023-24. Continuous production of surplus sugar every year without its appropriate exports and domestic sale of sugar below its costs of production has increasingly become unsustainable and unviable for the

sugar industry.

Sugarcane farmers have greatly suffered due to detrimental conditions of their wheat, cotton and maize crops and now are relying solely on sugarcane crop for their sustenance and survival. Previously cane payments to the growers have been made regularly and timely crushing was started but the current cash flow constraints confronted by the sugar industry due to huge inventory have increasingly become uncontainable.

The PSMA requests the Federal Government to allow export of surplus sugar to enable the sugar mills to complete cane payments to sugarcane farmers. International sugar prices are continuously sliding downwards and already US$300 million in foreign exchange earnings of the country have been lost due to delayed policy decision making in this regard.

The PSMA appeals to the government to urgently grant permission of export of verified surplus stocks of 1.2MMT on 15-07-2024, expected to rise to 1.5 million tons by end November, as little time is left in forthcoming crushing season which again is going to be a surplus season and formulate a permanent and inclusive policy on export of surplus sugar so that sugar industry keep contributing foreign exchange to the country’s agricultural and national economy.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024