Retail price of refined sugar may drop to as low as 60 per kilogram (kg) after select supermarkets capped their prices at P70 per kg and with the release in the market of thousands of sacks of sugar seized from raided warehouses last week, according to Domingo Panganiban, senior undersecretary of the Department of Agriculture (DA).
In a briefing yesterday, Panganiban said the government is also bent on improving local production of salt and wean the country away from import dependence,
On sugar, Panganiban said additional supply will come in as more warehouse raids will be conducted in Visayas and Mindanao.
Panganiban said the government is looking at how it can release the confiscated stocks of sugar from raids conducted last week in warehouses in Bulacan, Pampanga, Zambales, Batangas and parts of Metro Manila.
“They’re studying … the process… t to get the (sugar) but it’s already there, confiscated. The warehouses were also marked,” Panganiban said.
Supermarket chains Robinsons, SM, Puregold and S&R Membership Shopping agreed to sell the price of sugar at P70 per kg in Metro Manila starting this week.
The DA expects the cap to be in place until December.
“If prices drop in supermarkets, prices will also decrease in all markets… We may already see this expected drop within the week,” Panganiban said.
Based on the DA’s monitoring of 13 public markets in the National Capital Region, prevailing retail prices as of yesterday were still at P100 per kg for refined sugar, washed sugar at P75 per kg and brown sugar at P70 per kg.
The Sugar Regulatory Administration’s (SRA) millsite monitoring showed composite price of raw sugar as of August 7 was at P2,821.50 per 50 kg bag.
Meanwhile, Panganiban said the new leadership in the SRA will study if the country still needs to import a minimum of 100,000 metric tons (MT) and a maximum of 150,000 MT of sugar by the last week of October to mainly support the needs of the manufacturing sector.
According to Panganiban, a P500 million budget is required to revive the local salt industry.
“We can produce (salt) but we currently don’t have a program for it. We’re importing and I do not know the current volume but what I know is production of salt in Batangas and Mindanao are not that big,” Panganiban said.
Last month, KABAYAN Partylist representative Ron Salo filed House Bill No. 1976 seeking to revitalize the local salt industry and to prevent the country’s full dependence on imported salt.
His filed bill seeks for a comprehensive plan for the development of the local salt industry and the grant of incentives to salt farmers and exporters.
In his proposal, Salo also seeks the creation of an Administration for Salt Industry Development, Revitalization and Optimization to be co-headed by the DA and the Department of Trade and Industry, with members from executive agencies concerned and relevant industry stakeholders.
“The Philippines used to be salt self-sufficient. Today, it is a huge importer of salt. Import is estimated at around 550,000 metric tons of salt every year which constitutes around 93 percent of the country’s salt requirement. This is ironic considering that the Philippines has 36,000 kilometers of shoreline — the fifth longest shoreline in the world — which can be utilized for massive salt production,” Salo explained.