The Philippines' Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) is considering shipping sugar early to the United States to fill its 2011/12 quota, as government data showed the country on track to produce its biggest crop in at least three years.
Raw sugar production in the current crop year ending August was 2.204 million tonnes as of May 15, above a government forecast made in December of an output of 1.965 million tonnes in 2010/2011. Production so far in the current crop year has also exceeded the 2008/09 raw sugar output of 2.1 million tonnes and could match the country's output in 2007/08 of 2.455 million tonnes. The country's annual consumption is pegged at 2.2 million tonnes. SRA chief Regina Bautista-Martin issued an order on May 25 seeking for inventory levels of the industry for Class A sugar that could be exported to the United States.
"An early shipment of next crop year's US quota will help ease the pressure of high sugar stock inventory in the country and help stabilise the sugar situation," Bautista-Martin said in the order posted on the agency's website www.sra.gov.ph She said the ending stock balances for the current crop year would be higher than normal levels given a bigger-than-expected crop and slow sugar withdrawals from warehouses.
Last week, the state agency said it was considering exporting sugar to other countries, particularly those in Asia. Analysts project a large global sugar surplus for 2011 and 2012, but prices may stay strong with demand expected to pick up in North Africa and the Middle East before Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting in August.
The Philippines was initially given an allocation of 142,160 tonnes for the current crop year under the US annual quota. But in April, the US Department of Agriculture said it gave Manila an additional allocation of 60,000 tonnes after a local shortage pushed it to import nearly 300,000 tonnes from 26 countries including Brazil, a volume that would have been originally sourced domestically.
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