March 18, 2015
Manila Bulletin by Madelaine Miraflor | http://goo.gl/OX68if
The Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) has scrapped the sugar allocation for world market exports and would instead allocate all the supply to the domestic market since the output forecast did not meet the target.
In an order, SRA has allowed the reallocation of “D sugar” or world market sugar to “B sugar” or domestic market sugar, which covers sugar production of week ending March 15, 2015 and subsequent week endings of crop year 2014-2015.
As a result, the domestic market will now get up to 95 percent of the total production for the current crop year for sugar. However, the remaining five percent allocation of the production will still be allotted for “A sugar” or US sugar quota in line with the country’s commitment to the World Trade Organization.
The Philippines is one of the select countries that are given an annual allocation of sugar export to the US market at a premium.
For this crop year, Manila has a regular US sugar quota of 138,827 metric tons (MT) this year.
Tariff-rate quotas allow countries to export specified quantities of a product to the US at a relatively low tariff, but subject all imports of the product above a pre-determined threshold to a higher tariff.
Ma. Regina Bautista-Martin, SRA Administrator, said the adjustment in the distribution of sugar allocation was brought about by unfavorable weather conditions, which affected several sugarcane plantations in the Visayas region.
“Rains at the start of the sugar milling season in September 2014 affected the maturity of the canes,” Martin said.
Overall, Martin said the total raw sugar production for crop year 2014-2015 is now estimated at 2.465 million metric tons.
Although this is slightly lower than the initial projection of 2.5 million MT, this target is still higher than last year’s level.
SRA is a state-run agency tasked to establish and maintain a balanced relationship between sugar production and the requirements of sugar in order to maintain such marketing conditions as will ensure stabilized prices at levels reasonably profitable to the producers and fair to consumers.