The government’s planned importation of 440,000 metric tons (MT) of refined sugar will be pursued in three tranches and will all arrive as reserve sugar, according to the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA).
The government expects the move as a safeguard in order to calibrate the release of the volume into the market and protect the millgate price of local producers as well.
Custody of sugar that is classified as reserve is under the SRA and will require the agency to convene in order to be re-classified for domestic use before it can be shipped to traders and buyers.
“The import order was divided into three tranches of 100,000 MT, another 100,000 MT and the buffer stock of 240,000 MT. The first 100,000 MT was scheduled to arrive as soon as possible but all three will be arriving as reserve. The authority to convert and make it available to the market was left with the Sugar Board,” said Pablo Azcona, SRA planters’ representative, in an interview yesterday.
Azcona said the imports will help pull down retail prices of refined sugar to “around P85 per kilogram.” Prevailing retail price currently ranges from P87 to P110 per kg for refined in Metro Manila.
The SRA said the national government also has a separate approved importation of 64,050 MT of sugar through the minimum access volume (MAV). The agency is studying if the volume will be included in the 440,000 MT so as not to “flood” the market with supply.
Sugar imports under MAV are supplementary to the SRA’s planned 440,000 MT. Shipments under MAV are handled by the national government through the Department of Agriculture with a tariff rate of 50 percent.
The government made sugar available through the MAV system the first and only time, back in 2002.
“There are people who will say the price of imported is very low but if you look at it, the percentage of imports compared to our production is small. Our production has a higher price and (with) imports (at) slightly lower price, (the price) will average out, hopefully giving the retail consumers a better price,” Azcona added.
“It’s very important for me, as the farmers’ representative, that prices for farmers will not drop to the point they will no longer make money and stop planting,” Azcona said.
The SRA said the incoming 440,000 MT of sugar will also be allocated to all types of consumers, including industrial users because the release of stocks is calibrated for local producers to remain interested in improving their production and yield.
The SRA also said based on current projections, sugar production for crop year 2022-2023 will range between 1.831 million MT ad 1.84 million MT.
The latest projection is lower by 2 percent from SRA’s earlier projection of 1.88 million MT for the current crop year though 2.8 percent higher than the previous crop year’s actual output of 1.79 million MT.
