THE Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) has allowed the importation of at least 200,000 metric tons of standard and bottler’s grade refined sugar in view of the shortfall on the ending balance of refined sugar.

The SRA’s Sugar Board issued Sugar Order no. 3 for crop year 2021-2022 which allows the said importation, in pursuant to its mandate to establish and maintain such balanced relation between production and requirement of sugar and such marketing conditions as will ensure stabilized prices.

SRA Administrator Hermenegildo Serafica explained that after assessing the damage caused by typhoon “Odette” to sugarcane crops, sugar stocks at warehouses, as well as facilities and equipment of sugar mills and refineries in key sugar milling districts, the SRA recalibrated its pre-final crop estimate of raw sugar production to 2.072 MT down from the 2.099 MT pre-final crop estimate before Odette.

In addition, the Philippine Association of Sugar Refineries also revised its refined sugar production forecast for crop year 2021-2022 to 16.748 million LKg (50-kilo bag), down from the initial production estimate of 17.572 million LKg before Typhoon “Odette.”

According to SRA’s projections on sugar supply and demand, this will give the country a very tight sugar stock balance at the end of milling which will not be enough to cover the two to three months’ demand for refined sugar in between the milling seasons.

In its recent monitoring of sugar prices, the SRA also recorded that the wholesale prices for both raw and refined sugar have increased to record highs. Likewise, retail sugar prices were also up.

“As the economy is once again starting to open up, the demand for raw sugar and refined sugar for January this year have also increased when compared to the same month in the three previous years,” Serafica said in a statement.

“Hence the need to augment sugar stocks to ensure food security and availability of sugar to cover sugar demand until the next crop year or milling season begins again,” Serafica added.

A crop year starts Sept. 1 and ends August 31 of the following year, however, the sugar mills and refineries generally stop operations around May to June and the mills start operations for the next season around September to October while the refineries start around two weeks after the mills.

Serafica further stressed that the 200,00 MT of refined sugar that will be imported will cover the shortfall on the supply and will leave the country with enough buffer stock to tide over until the start of the next milling season.

During a stakeholder’s consultation conducted by SRA, stakeholders posed no objection to an importation program, while they recommended its mechanics, type of sugar to be imported, and arrival dates of shipments, among others.

Eligible participants to this open and voluntary importation program are industrial users of refined sugar in good standing that are duly registered international traders.

An industrial user that is not registered with SRA as an international trader, may appoint an international sugar trader in good standing to import for its account.