Sugar importation ‘killing’ local producers

By Francis Allan L. Angelo

 

Bitter woes are besetting a sweet industry.

A sugar producer challenged the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) to reveal the real facts and figures behind the industry that is suffering from low production in the past 5 to 6 years.

Steven Chan whose family owns sugar mills in Iloilo and Negros Occidental lamented how the SRA has been hiding the data on the actual situation of the sugar industry.

Chan’s chief complaint is on the mysterious reasons behind the exportation of local sugar and importation of foreign sugar amid the sagging local production.

He said local producers are losing between P900 million and P2 billion in the past years because of the SRA’s mysterious practices.

Daily Guardian has reached out to SRA officials for comments but they have yet to respond as of this writing.

Citing SRA figures, Chan said the average total consumption of sugar in the country is around 2.5 million metric tons of sugar a year, against an average annual production of 2.2 million MT, which translates to a shortfall of 300,000 MT.

“Kulang kita (We’re short). The SRA is hiding these figures because they want to twist the numbers and present another scenario to the public,” Chan told Daily Guardian on Air via Aksyon Radyo-Iloilo.

He cited an example where SRA reported that this year’s production is only 1.97 million MT because they don’t want to report the actual data on imported sugar.

“They are hiding that number and sugar producers and consumers are suffering. The money-making scheme is like this: they will announce that we have excess production due to low consumption so we can export sugar. Once we allocate ‘A’ sugar for the US market, the traders pay P300 to P350 less than our prevailing market price which is a loss to our traders. We already have a deficit of 300,000 MT but they will subtract another 150,000 for export, our deficit now is at 450,000 MT. What happens is we will import 450,000 MT instead of the actual 350,000MT shortage,” Chan said.

Chan said the situation is tantamount to killing the local sugar industry as the market is flooded with imported sugar that is way cheaper than the US prices.

“I have been convincing SRA to face me in public and report the numbers, but they have been refusing in the past five years because they are not willing to present the actual figures because of importation.”

Chan added that he already filed several cases against SRA “but the cartel is well-funded.”

“So far, I managed to stop them from giving sugar allocation to ethanol. But as to the case of excess sugar and importation, that’s an uphill endeavor,” he said.

The confusing figures and statements from the SRA continue to this day after it claimed that the country had excess production of 220,000 MT in September 2020. But in April 2021, the agency projected a production shortfall of 2.1 million MT which led to the scrapping of sugar exports to the US.

“The problem is they don’t show the actual basis for the numbers. But the figures I got is our production is 2.4 million MT and we will be short by 300,000 MT. If we are short in supply, why do we keep exporting?” he added.

Chan said he hopes that Congress will investigate SRA’s data and practices, particularly in the light of pork importation.

“I hope they will also look into the sugar industry because we are very much affected now,” he added.