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Govt turns down PSMA plea for sugar export

ISLAMABAD: The government has turned down Pakistan

Sugar Mills Association's proposal for sugar export this year, Food Ministry sources told Fortuna on Wednesday.

Sources said the government had abandoned plan to export of sugar this season to avert the possibility of shortage in sugar supply at the end of the year 2000.

Pakistan Sugar Mills Association also confirmed having abandoned its demand for permission to export sugar this season, but said it did not foresee shortage in sugar supply in the coming season.

Official sources said a poor sugarcane crop in the Punjab was likely to result in reduced sugar production this season, thus forcing the government to maintain substantial buffer stocks.

"Discouraging sugar exports at this stage would enable producers to meet domestic demand even if sugar production fell as drastically as 20 percent during the new crushing season", these officials maintained.

"We hope that there would be no shortage because we have 250,000 tonnes end-of-period stock from the previous year", officials said.

Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA) had asked the government to allow producers to export at least 100,000 tonnes of sugar this season to ensure Pakistan's presence as an exporter of sugar in the international market. PSMA had also asked for substantial rebates on sugar exports to save sugar mills from closing down.

PSMA Secretary General K Ali Qazilbash confirmed that sugarcane production this year had dropped considerably prompting concerns that refined sugar production may decrease by up to a half million tonnes.

"But, we do not see any shortage as the initial data collected from the mills and the previous year's stocks show that it would be enough to meet domestic requirements. "This is because sugarcane yield per hectare is not more than 35 tonnes in the Punjab as compared to previous year's 47.77 tonnes reflecting decrease of 13 tonnes per hectare.

Qazilbash maintained that a record slump in sugarcane production had dashed earlier hopes of sugar mills forcing them to abandon export plans.

The per hectare yield in 1996-97 and 1997-98 was 43.54 and 50.28 tonnes respectively and the yield this year (1999-2000) would be the lowest in the past decade.

The PSMA representative said early estimates suggested that sugar production during the current season would not be above 2.9 million tonnes as compared to 3.5 million tonnes last season.