Traders shipped 100,662.51 metric tons (MT) of raw sugar to China and Japan as part of efforts to reduce the country’s sugar inventory, according to the Philippine Sugar Millers Association Inc. (PSMA).
PSMA Executive Director Francisco D. Varua said the volume is part of the 140,000 MT of sugar that Philippine traders would export to countries other than the United States by the end of November.
“The SRA [Sugar Regulatory Administration] gave a deadline for the shipment of all ‘D’ sugar to the world market before the end of November,” Varua told the BusinessMirror in a recent interview. “As of October 5, the total shipment of ‘D’ sugar is 100,662.51 MT.”
Varua said shipping 140,000 MT of ‘D” sugar would help reduce the country’s sugar inventory and improve domestic prices during the current crop year, which began on September 1.
“The price of ‘B’ sugar now is P1,383 per 50-kilogram bag (lkg),” he added. The figure was 6.38 percent higher than the P1,300 per-lkg price level recorded as of August 31.
A sugar crop year (CY) in the Philippines runs from September 1 to August 31 of the following year.
The country’s raw sugar balance at the end of CY 2016-2017 was pegged at 391,918.80 MT, 69.23 percent higher than the 231,589.20 MT recorded in the previous CY ending August 31, 2016.
In March the SRA issued Sugar Order (SO) 1-B, which authorized the reallocation of locally produced sugar in CY 2016-2017. The SRA made the reallocation to arrest the decline in the domestic price of sugar.
Under SO 1-B, the SRA reduced the allocation for “B” (domestic) sugar to 74 percent, from 94 percent, and allocated 20 percent for “D” sugar, or those shipped to countries other than the US.
“Monitoring reports showed the continuing downward trend in the withdrawals of raw and refined sugar in the domestic market and for four consecutive weeks, prices of sugar continued to drop,” SO 1-B read.
“Hence, there is an imperative need to take urgent measures in order to arrest the detrimental economic effects of the imbalance between sugar production and the requirement of sugar and to stabilize the collapsing price of sugar consistent with public welfare,” it added.