LAHORE: The Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (Punjab Zone) has said that the sugar industry appreciates and supports the efforts of the federal and provincial governments to provide the cheapest sugar to domestic consumers in the holy month of Ramazan and would make discounted sugar available at Rs 130 per kilogram through sale points to be established throughout the country.
About current sugar prices, the spokesman said that sugar prices are mainly controlled by market forces of demand and supply, but sugar market sensitivities are influenced by speculators by spreading false and exaggerated news to make money at the cost of consumers, sugarcane farmers and the sugar industry.
Such rumour-mongering is sponsored by the stakeholders of this illegal trade, which emerges as its sole beneficiary. The sugar industry strongly appeals to the government to uproot these elements and take action against speculators for the common good of consumers, farmers, and the sugar industry.
Sugar will be available at Rs130/kg in Ramazan: Tanveer
After last year’s sugar exports, local prices of sugar went down and remained depressed. No sugar exports are allowed during the current crushing season.
The sugar industry of Pakistan provides the world’s cheapest locally produced sugar despite low sugar recovery, low sugarcane yield, highest taxation, and production costs. While any imported sugar would bear a landed cost of over Rs 200 per kg as of today and is rising constantly because of shortages of crops in India and Brazil.
Inflationary trends have greatly impacted the cost of production of sugar since 2021. The sugarcane purchase price is 80% of the sugar cost of production, while in the crushing season of 2022–23 alone, the Minimum Support Price of sugarcane was increased from Rs 225 to Rs 300 per maund, which was a 33% increase as compared to the previous year.
Similarly, MSP was raised from Rs 300 to Rs 425 per maund in 2023-24, an increase of 41%. In the current crushing season too, the price of sugarcane has reached Rs. 600 per maund. While season’s average so far is around Rs. 500 per maund, which is much higher than the regulated minimum support price of the last crushing season.
Besides cane prices, sugar mills have also faced other increased costs due to historically high interest rates, rising minimum wages, and costs of imported chemicals and spare parts coupled with carrying costs of 1 million MT of last year’s surplus sugar, rendering the economics of sugar mills unviable.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
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