November 11, 2024 | 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — There will be no importation of sugar until mid-2025 as the domestic supply of both raw and refined sugar remains stable and sufficient to meet projected needs, Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu-Laurel Jr. said.
The decision was reached during his recent meeting with Sugar Regulatory Authority (SRA) Administrator Pablo Luis Azcona.
“Administrator Azcona and I agreed that a decision on sugar importation could be delayed until after May, when the current harvest season ends,” Tiu Laurel said.
He added that they will have to first gain a clearer understanding of the country’s domestic supply with the start of the current crop year’s harvest.
Azcona said the current harvest season started slowly, with total cane volume reaching only a third of the amount harvested around the same period in the last crop year.
He blamed the lower sugar content of cane to El Niño as the prolonged dry spells resulted in the cane being physiologically immature.
This then resulted in a 16 percent lower sugar content per ton of cane which affected sugar output despite an increase in planting areas.
“Farmers had to delay their harvests to allow the cane to mature further and increase sugar content,” he said.
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.
Azcona said that this year’s sugar production is expected to reach 1.782 million metric tons (MT) while the US Department of Agriculture forecasts a 3.6-percent decline in Philippine raw sugar production for the current crop year.
He said the sugar output is expected to fall to 1.85 million MT from 1.92 million MT in the previous crop year.
The current crop year ends in August next year.
Based on monitoring of the DA, the retail price of refined sugar ranged between P74 and P90 per kilo; washed sugar, between P70 and P90; and brown sugar, between P65 and P90 per kilo. — Gilbert Bayoran
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