PSMA wants more sugar export to fetch $1bn forex

Federal Minister for Industries and Production appreciated association’s helpful efforts to maintain sugar prices in domestic market

By Our Correspondent
July 29, 2024
A representational image showing workers preparing sugar bags at a warehouse in Islamabad. — AFP/File
A representational image showing workers preparing sugar bags at a warehouse in Islamabad. — AFP/File

LAHORE: The Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA-Punjab Zone) has reiterated its request to the government to allow 1.5 million metric tons of surplus sugar export, to fetch one billion dollars in foreign exchange for the country.

In a statement on Sunday, a PSMA spokesman claimed that during a recent meeting of Sugar Advisory Board (SAB) in Islamabad, Federal Minister for Industries and Production Rana Tanveer Hussain appreciated the association’s helpful efforts to maintain sugar prices in domestic market.

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 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 cost of production has increasingly become unsustainable and unviable for the sugar industry, the spokesman said. The spokesman said sugarcane farmers have greatly suffered due to detrimental conditions of their wheat, cotton and maize crops and are now 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, he claimed.

The PSMA requested the federal government to allow export of surplus sugar to enable the sugar mills to complete cane payments to sugarcane farmers. It said 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 appealed to the government to urgently grant permission of export of verified surplus stocks of 1.2 MMT on July 15, 2024, expected to rise to 1.5 million tons by end of November.