July 1, 2015
Sugaronline | http://goo.gl/PTKPq8
The sugar export to different countries has fetched foreign exchange of US$171.78 million during first three quarters of previous fiscal year, according to the Associated Press of Pakistan.
The cropped area for sugarcane stood at 1.141 million hectares during 2014/15 against last year's area of 1.173 million hectares.
Official sources on Wednesday said sugarcane is an important cash crop of Pakistan and is mainly cultivated for sugar and sugar- related production along with an input for paper and board industry.
Sugarcane accounts for 3.1% in agriculture value addition and 0.6% in Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The sources said sugarcane production for the year 2014/15 stood at 62.7 million tonnes against 67.5 million tonnes last year, showing a decrease of 7.1% which was due to decrease in cropped area over last year as competitive crop (rice and cotton) discouraged the growers to bring more area under cultivation.
The disposal problems of sugarcane and payments difficulties also restricted the acreage of sugarcane.