The Department of Agriculture (DA) said the Philippines will delay until middle of next year its decision on sugar importation when the current crop year’s harvest season ends.
The DA in a statement on Sunday said Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. and Sugar Regulatory Authority Administration (SRA) administrator Pablo Luis Azcona agreed on Thursday to make a decision after May 2025.
Tiu Laurel said there is no immediate need for additional imports as domestic supply of raw and refined sugar remains stable and sufficient to meet projected needs.
The SRA approves the entry of sugar imports when the domestic sugar buffer supply falls short of covering three months of demand. The Philippines has a monthly sugar demand of around 200,000 MT.
Azcona said the current harvest season started slow, with total cane volume reaching only a third of the amount harvested around the same period in the last crop year.
He said farmers had to wait for the canes to mature further to increase sugar content.
The DA explained that the extended dry periods caused by El Niño led to the cane being physiologically immature, resulting in a 16 percent reduction in sugar content per ton of cane. This has limited sugar production, despite the expansion of planting areas.
Based on SRA data, the area planted to sugar cane this year increased slightly to 389,461 hectares, up from 388,378 hectares the previous crop year.
The SRA estimated this crop year’s sugar production at 1.782 million metric tons (MT), a 7.2 percent drop from the previous crop year’s 1.922 million MT.
Based on DA’s monitoring of public markets in the National Capital Region, prevailing retail price as of last Thursday ranged from P74 to P90 per kg for refined sugar, P70 to P90 per kg for washed sugar and P65 to P90 per kg for brown sugar.
SRA millsite monitoring also showed composite price of raw sugar as of October 13 was at P2,824.04 per 50 kg bag.
