August 13, 2015
Manila Standard Times (Anna Leah E. Gonzales) | http://goo.gl/YGV8PA
The Philippines will likely stop exporting sugar to meet the rising domestic demand, the Sugar Regulatory Administration said Thursday.
SRA, which regulates the sugar industry, said it would allocate 100 percent of the sugar production in the coming crop year for domestic consumption. The sugar crop year begins September and ends August of the following year.
SRA administrator Ma. Regina Martin said 100 percent of the production for crop year 2015- 2016 would be used for domestic consumption to address the increasing demand.
Martin said the agency was studying if it would allow the export of the leftover stock from the current crop year ending August.
She said the country would likely end with an excess of 200,000 metric tons of sugar, which could be allocated for the US market.
The Philippines is one of the preferred countries which have a regular US sugar quota of 138,827 metric tons.
Data from SRA showed that sugar production in the crop year 2015-2016 would reach 2.25 to 2.35 million metric tons. Martin said this would be just enough to cover domestic consumption of around 2.2 million metric tons.
“Production will be wholly allocated to domestic market because we have anticipated that output will be the same level as the demand,” Martin said.
Martin, however, said the SRA voard would still decide on the final sugar allocation before the start of the crop year in September.
Martin said if the SRA board approved the allocation of whole domestic production for the domestic market, the country would no longer ship sugar to the world market.
She said SRA was crafting a scheme in order to meet its export commitments to the US. “We are still crafting and studying a program on how we will comply with the US sugar quota,” Martin said.
Martin said sugar production in the crop year 2014-2015 reached 2.316 million MT, which fell short of the 2.46 million MT target, because of adverse weather that affected most sugarcane producing provinces.