SUGAR Board director Emilio Yulo III said sugar planters have agreed to a calibrated and preemptive importation program if the situation warrants as long as the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) will be on top of the situation and will continue to exercise its mandate as provided for by law.
This, after Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol pushed for sugar importation, a measure that will directly benefit only the consuming public.
Yulo said the sugar milling season has already started, “we are confident that we have enough sugar supply in the country but we are agreeable to this measure in order to avoid a situation similar to what has happened to the rice industry recently.”
This is the sugar industry’s contribution to President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration in helping curb inflation and helps in the nation’s development in the way that the President and the Department of Agriculture have also previously extended their support to the industry, he said.
Piñol, in a Facebook post, said the country’s sugar planters have volunteered to sell refined sugar at P48 per kilo and allow the government to import up to 300,000 metric tons of sugar to bring down prices in the market.
The sugar planters, who in the past had resisted moves of government to bring in imported sugar, made the announcement in a dinner meeting with him, which was hosted by Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri in Makati Thursday, September 13.
The sugar planters said they will not ask for royalty payments unlike in previous importations, Piñol said.
In the past, the SRA issued import permits to the planters associations who sold the import permits to traders who in turn sold the sugar to the end users, the Cabinet official said.
The system allowed unscrupulous traders to control the imported sugar and the prices, he said, adding it also failed to bring down prices of sugar in the market.