Industry stakeholders said the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) should allocate portion of the planned imports to consumers so they can benefit from lower prices.
They said SRA’s draft Sugar Order (SO) No. 4 as well as SO3 will benefit industrial users the most.
The latter is subject to preliminary injunction.
SRA’s SO 4 will allow the importation of 350,000 metric tons (MT) of raw and refined sugar on top of the 200,000 MT under SO3. About 100,000 MT under SO3 will be for standard grade refined sugar while the rest will be for bottler’s grade refined sugar.
Of the 350,000 MT sugar imports under SO4, 250,000 MT will be refined sugar of which 150,000 MT is premium grade or bottlers’ grade refined sugar and the remaining 100,000 MT, raw sugar.
Industrial users include manufacturers of food and beverage products including biscuits, candies and juice as well as registered traders.
Rolly Beltran, SRA board member representing millers, questioned the agency’s move to limit the imports to a particular class of importers.
“Why not make the importation program all inclusive? Why not allow the major stakeholders to participate in the importation program rather than to a select few, favoring a particular class of importers to the prejudice of the sugar industry as well as the economy in general,” said Beltran.
“It is my position the sugar importation program should be made available equitably to major stakeholders and to benefit the sari-sari stores, wet markets, groceries, supermarkets and the like. These are the vulnerable sectors of our society that are principally affected by the rising prices of sugar,” Beltran added.
Dino Yulo, former SRA board member representing farmers, said the plight of planters reeling from rising fertilizers and fuel costs would be aggravated by imports favoring industrial users and the bottlers.
Yulo said planters are not against importation per se as long as it is not “exclusive to industrial users and must be justifiable to dispel doubts.”
He said SRA must “not use prevailing prices affecting domestic consumers as a smokescreen when they are clearly not going to directly benefit from this new sugar order.”
SRA administrator Hermenegildo Serafica said for crop year 2021-2022, estimated refined sugar production is 817,321 MT with the carry over stock from last crop year at 143,621 MT, or a total refined sugar supply of 960,942 MT against a projected refined sugar demand of 955,113 MT.
SRA estimates raw sugar production for this crop year at 1.98 million MT with carry over domestic raw sugar stock from last crop year of 228,690 MT for a total raw sugar supply of 2.21 million MT compared with a projected raw sugar demand of 2.2 million MT.
Serafica added at the end of the season, the country needs enough buffer stock to cover the lull in production during the end of the milling and refining season until the next season production starts and builds up.
“In the case of raw sugar a one-to two months-worth of buffer stock would be good while for refined sugar and around two to three months buffer stock is needed since refining starts later. Based on historical data, there is generally about two to three months lull in production around the end of milling/refining season and start of milling/refining of the next season,” Serafica said.
The SRA said for the past three crop years, average monthly raw sugar withdrawal was 167,276 MT while average monthly refined sugar withdrawal was 88,504 MT.
The agency added at present, out of 12 sugar refineries, five refineries have stopped refining while the rest are schedule to stop in the coming weeks until second week of June.
Of the 27 raw sugar mills, two have stopped milling while the majority are scheduled to end in the coming weeks until last week of May with only one mill signifying plans to continue milling until July.
The Department of Agriculture’s monitoring of 13 public markets in the National Capital Region as of yesterday showed the prevailing retail prices of refined sugar were up from March 14 monitoring at P70 per kg from P65 per kg.
However, for the period, washed sugar was down at P53 per kg from P55 per kg as brown sugar remained at P50 per kg.
As for SRA’s millsite prices monitoring, composite price of raw sugar as of April 3 was at P2,151.47 per 50 kg bag compared to March 6’s P 1,926.53 per 50 kg bag.
