By Commerce Reporter
LAHORE: Pakistan Sugar Mills Association has said that several mill owners and their representatives attended the meeting of the Sugar Advisory Board, in which they took a clear stance that ample sugar stocks are currently available and when those are exhausted, their mills will take an individual decision and start the new crushing season, and there is no need to issue a notice by the federal government.
In this regard, no final date for start of the crushing season was agreed upon and there is no justification in starting the mills on November 15th.
They assured the meeting that sugar stocks are sufficient to meet the country’s needs until December 15.
If the mills start early, raw sugarcane will be crushed while the sucrose level in it will be lesser and it is likely that about 300,000 tons less sugar will be produced.
It can fall short of production estimates and can also cause losses of billions of rupees to the country’s economy and the sugar industry.
In addition, the remaining sugar stocks of the mills will put pressure on their cash flow and they will bear additional financial costs to keep these stocks.
The sugarcane farmers may be effected, as due to the financial crunch mills may not be able to offer good and timely prices for the crop like it gave last year.
The government will face difficulties in selling expensive imported sugar due to early start of the crushing season, resultantly national exchequer will have to bear heavy losses.
The spokesman said that as long as the supply of local sugar was uninterrupted in the market, prices remained stable.
The government unnecessarily imported nearly 325,000 tons of sugar and as soon as it arrived, government closed the FBR portals to ensure its sale in the market.
This led to shortages in the supply chain of sugar in different markets, resultantly increasing the sugar prices, of which the sugar industry was neither beneficiary nor responsible.
However, after realizing the state of affairs the supply of sugar from sugar mills at the notified ex-mill price is being restored.
