January 23, 2024
Malaya Business Insight | https://malaya.com.ph/news_business/sugar-prices-seen-dropping-to-p85-kg...
The Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) said it aims to gather all suggestions from stakeholders in two weeks to firm up the government’s plan to directly purchase sugar worth P5 billion from farmers at a premium price.
Pablo Azcona, SRA administrator, said in a briefing yesterday that while the figures are not yet final, the government is hoping sugar purchased directly from producers can be sold at P85 per kg at retail.
Azcona the direct purchase scheme is being fast-tracked as this year’s expected sugarcane milling period has reached more than 50 percent.
The Department of Agriculture (DA) specifically tasked the SRA to come up with the mechanism on how the program will run.
“SRA will be the one talking to the farmers and coming up with summarizing and incorporating everybody’s suggestions and recommendations. But the SRA cannot join the marketing side… So, we will pass all our recommendations to the DA,” Azcona said, adding the Philippine International Trading Corp. will implement the program
The initial P5 billion allocation will allow the government to purchase a 50 kg bag (LKG) of sugar
at P2,700 to P2,800 each, compared to the current pricing of P2,400 to P2,500 LKG, noted Azcona.
Based on DA’s monitoring of public markets in the National Capital Region, the prevailing retail price as of Friday ranges from P74 to P100 per kg for refined sugar, P68 to P96 per kg for washed sugar and P60 to P90 per kg for brown sugar.
SRA millsite monitoring showed that composite price of raw sugar as of January 7 was at P2,408.97 LKG.