close
Tuesday March 19, 2024

Who exported how much sugar

By Jawwad Rizvi
March 03, 2020

LAHORE: Jehangir Khan Tareen and Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (Punjab) Chairman Nauman Ahmed Khan are the biggest beneficiaries of sugar exports in the country while the Sugar Advisory Board (SAB) in its meeting held in June 2019 raised concern about increase in sugar prices besides opening of the new crushing season with net deficit of 0.191 million metric tons, according to official documents available with The News.

However, no government authority has taken timely action in view of the situation by stopping sugar exports. Even the SAB meeting which was chaired by Advisor to Prime Minister for Industries and Production, Commerce, Textile and Investment Abdul Razak Dawood, instead of controlling the exports to avoid crisis, told the chairman Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA) that if any help was needed, the ambassador of China would be requested to enhance the quota of sugar exports to China.

The meeting minutes of the SAB stated that the chairman PSMA explained that the exports for China were 0.3 MMT and the response from China was very positive regarding quality of Pakistani sugar. The remaining quota for China was 0.117 MMT which they proposed to export in near future.

Even in a SAB meeting held on September 13, 2019, the chairman PSMA was asked to allow the remaining balance of 0.4 MMT tons of already permitted 1.1 million metric tons of sugar by the ECC in 2018-19 to China and Afghanistan, which was refused by the secretary Ministry of Industry and Production (MIP).

According to the SAB meeting minutes, the MIP secretary responded that this was not a viable time for further exports due to high price of sugar in the domestic market. The chairman raised concern about the increase of 36.86 per cent in the average retail price of sugar in the crushing season of 2018-19.

According to the official sugar export data available with The News, on February 3, 2020, the total sugar exports of the country were 783,308 tons out of which the Jehangir Tareen group was the largest beneficiary by exporting a total of 136,621 metric tons sugar. The breakup of the sugar mills which exported sugar is JDW Sugar Mills 111,621 tons, JDW Sugar Mills 10,000 tons, Dehrki Sugar Mills 10,000 tons, AKT Sugar Mills 4,000 tons and JK Sugar Mills 1,000 tons. The Hunza Sugar Mill is the third largest beneficiary of sugar exports with exported volume of 91,041 tons. The sugar mill is owned by the Hunza Group which is also running a Ghee factory.

The Etihad Sugar Mills owned by the Ch Munir family exported 58,786 tons of sugar, the Fatima Sugar Mills owned by Fatima Group exported 72,652 tons sugar, The Indus Sugar Mills owned by the Dreshak family exported 53,821 tons sugar, the RYK Sugar Mills owned by Federal Minister for Planning and Development Khusro Bakhtiyar and Punjab Finance Minister Hashim Jawan Baht exported 24,600 tons.

Other exporters of sugar are Faran Sugar Mill with 20,350 tons, Husien Sugar Mills with 19,171 tons, Al-Noor Sugar Mill with 18,800 tons, Seikhoo Sugar Mills with 17,750 tons, Noon Sugar Mills with 13,353 tons, Shahmurd Sugar Mills with 13,186 tons, Mehran Sugar Mill with 10,022 tons, Jauharabad Sugar Mills with 9,000 tons, Huda (Fauji) Sugar Mills with 8,758 tons, SGM Sugar Mills with 7,570 tons, Sindh Abadgar’s Sugar Mills with 5400 tons, Mirpur Khas Sugar Mills with 5,292 tons, Popular Sugar Mills with 4,736 tons, Habib Sugar Mills with 4000 tons, Al-Abbas Sugar Mills with 4,000 tons, Tandlianwala Sugar Mills with 3150 tons, Sanghar Sugar Mills with 3,000 tons, Khairpur Sugar Mills 3,000 tons, Ranipur Sugar Mills with 3,000 tons, Adam Sugar Mills with 3,525 tons, Al-Arabia Sugar Mills with 740 tons and Chashma Sugar Mills with 296 tons.

Nauman Ahmed Khan, talking to The News, said Jehangir Tareen is the largest producer of sugar. He said there was a need to look at others whose exports are much higher when compared with their production. However, he said the PSMA is unable to understand why there is hue and cry over sugar prices. He mentioned that almost $70 million foreign exchange was earned by the sugar industry through exports at a critical time. On import of sugar, he apprehended that the country might need some sugar import to meet the need of November 2020 consumption. The country will spend less on import of sugar if needed against the foreign exchange earned from exports, he commented.

Once the local prices start improving, exports slow down as no one is interested in exports when it is getting reasonable price in domestic markets, he added. “In the months when domestic sugar prices increased, the exports decreased,” he claimed.

Contrary to his claim, according to the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) data, the total sugar exports during October 2018 and January 2020 were $439.8 million. The sugar exports in October 2018 were $19.544 million, 11.094 million in November 2018, 7.1 million in December 2018, 22.015 million in January 2019, 24.461 million in February 2019, 32.20 million in March 2019, 32.27 million in April 2019, 79.914 million in May 2019, 39.041 million in June 2019, 14.579 million in July 2019, 14.72 million in August 2019, 56.072 million in September 2019, 29.446 million in October 2019, 19.416 million in November 2019, 17.321 million in December 2019 and almost 19.471 million in January 2020.